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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..15997d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63158 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63158) diff --git a/old/63158-0.txt b/old/63158-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ce9d853..0000000 --- a/old/63158-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5934 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63158 *** - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - VOL. II. - - - - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - - BY - - MRS. OLIPHANT - - AUTHOR OF - - “The Chronicles of Carlingford,” - - &c., &c. - - - IN THREE VOLUMES. - - VOL. II. - - - LONDON: - HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, - 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. - 1881. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -HARRY’S RESOLUTION. - - -There is nothing that grows and strengthens with thinking of it like the -sense of personal injury. Harry Joscelyn had been very angry when he -left home; but he was not half so angry at that moment as when he looked -out of the window of the railway carriage, as the train swept through -the valley, and saw in the distance the village roofs, over which, had -there been light enough, and had his eyes served him so far, he might -have seen the White House seated, firm and defiant, upon the Fellside. -And every mile that he travelled his wrath and indignation grew. When he -reached Liverpool he had formed his purpose beyond the reach of -argument, or anything that reason could say; and reason said very little -in the general excitement of his being. He had been turned out of his -home, he had been refused the money by which he thought he could have -made his fortune. He felt himself cast off by everybody belonging to -him. His mother had permitted that final outrage, he thought; for surely -she could have found means of help if she had chosen to exert herself. -His Uncle Henry had bought himself off, and got rid of a troublesome -applicant by the gift of that twenty pounds. They were all against him. -He thought of it and thought of it till they seemed to be all his -enemies, and at last he came to believe that they were glad to get quit -of him, to be done with him. This was the aspect under which he -contemplated his relations with his family when he got to Liverpool; and -the effect upon him was that of a settled disgust with all the ordinary -habits of his life, and its fashion altogether. When he thought of -returning to the office, to his former routine as clerk, the idea made -him sick. It seemed to him that he could do anything, or go anywhere, -rather than this. But though the impulse of abandoning all he had been -or done hitherto was instantaneous, he could not quite settle in a -moment, with the same rapidity, what he was to do, or be, in the future. -He crossed to the other side of the great river with his little bag of -“needments,” the linen Mrs. Eadie had bought for him and a few other -indispensable things which he had himself procured, and lived in one of -the villages there, which have now grown into towns, watching the ships -go by, and leaving his mind open to any wandering impulse that might lay -hold upon it. In these days the River Mersey was a great sight, as -probably it is still. To the idle young man, accustomed to some share in -the perpetual commotion of that coming and going, there was meaning in -every one of the multitudinous ships that lay at anchor in the great -stream, or glided out, full-sail, to the sea, or were poked and dragged -away by a restless, toiling little slave of a steam-tug, carrying off -its prey like one of the devils of the Inferno. He knew where they were -going, and what they had to bring from afar, and all about their bills -of lading and the passengers they carried. The river had not to him that -grandeur of prose which becomes poetry, and fact which turns to romance, -in less accustomed minds; but was only a huge highway, a big street -full of crowds coming and going, over which he brooded, wondering where -he should plunge into the tide of movement, and how take his first step -out of the horizons which hitherto had bounded him. He did not say, as -his mother might have done, “Oh, for the wings of a dove!” but he put -that profound breath of human impatience into nineteenth century prose, -and said to himself, “If I had but a steamboat, a yacht, anything to -take me out of reach of all of them, where they will never hear of me -again!” He was not rich enough, however, to hope for a yacht, so that -all he could really do was to decide what “boat” he would go with, and -whether he should turn his steps across the Atlantic, or choose another -quarter of the world in which to become another man. - -He went to the office one day, as Philip Selby discovered, and asked for -the amount of salary due to him, and purchased a few more necessary -articles of clothing; and he wrote to the persons to whom he owed money, -telling them that he was about to leave Liverpool, but would send them -their money without fail within a certain period. He did not know how -this was to be done, but he was resolute to do it, and he had no more -doubt on the matter than he had that he should perfectly succeed in his -plunge into the unknown. But after he had done this he remained for some -days longer by the river-side with a self-contradictory impulse, -watching the ships go by, and putting off the execution of his project. -Where was he to go? To resolve to give up his own identity, to separate -himself for ever from his family, and all his belongings, and all his -antecedents, was easy; but to make up his mind which boat he was to go -by, and whither he was to betake himself, was much more difficult. -America was so hackneyed, he said to himself, with that fastidious -impatience and disgust which is one of the characteristics of a sick -soul: everybody goes to America; it would be the first idea that would -occur to everyone; and this made him throw away that first suggestion -angrily, as if it had been an offence; but if not to America, then -where? He tossed about various names in his mind, satisfied with none, -and when at last he made his decision, it was made in a moment, with the -same kind of sick disgust and impatience as had made him reject the -other ideas as they presented themselves. He was crossing the river to -Liverpool, leaning over the side of the ferry steamboat lest anybody -should see and recognize him, and in his own mind passing in review the -advantages and disadvantages of all the ships he passed. The Mersey was -very full and very bright, the sun shining, a brisk breeze blowing, the -sky blue, the great estuary throwing up white edges of spray and leaping -here and there against the bows of an out-going boat, in a manner which -boded little comfort to unaccustomed sailors outside the shelter of its -banks. The opposite shore was still clothed with trees beginning to grow -green in the earliest tints of spring, and not unpleasantly mingled with -the beginnings of docks and traces of mercantile invasion. Nature, as -yet, had not given up her harmonizing power; the touches of colour on -the masts, a national flag flying here and there, even the sailors’ -washing fluttering among the yards, was an addition to the brilliancy of -the spring lights. The ferry-boat was full of people, though it was not -the hour for business men to be moving about. The freight was a more -varied one than that mass of black-coated figures which weighed it down -to the water’s edge in the morning. But Harry turned his back upon them -all, and looked over the side, watching in a dream the long trail of -water which slid under the bows and was caught and churned by the -paddle-wheel. The motion, as he watched it thus, soothed him, and took -the place of thinking in his mind, carrying him vaguely, he knew not -whither, just as he would fain have been carried beyond the ken of men. -He was waiting the guidance of chance, not caring what became of him. -Something caught his ear suddenly as the ferry-boat rustled along by the -side of a long low steamer with raking masts and short funnels, which -lay not far from the bank. - -“I wouldn’t go in that boat for the world,” some one said. The remark -caught Harry’s ear, and roused him into mere wantonness of opposition. -“Why?” he said to himself aloud. It did not matter whether it was said -loud or low, nobody but himself could hear it as he leaned over the -rushing water. “I’ll go.” He was in such a condition of perversity that -this was all he wanted to fix his purpose. - -He landed on the Liverpool side, no longer languidly, but with the air -of a man who has something to do, and went straight to examine the ship -and ascertain where to apply for his passage. She was bound for -Leghorn. He went stepping briskly forth to the office of the agent, and -then with a mixture of economy and gentility, still conscious of the -importance of the family from which he was about to cut himself off, -took a passage in what was called the second cabin. - -“What name?” said the clerk. What name? he had not considered this -question. Should he give his own name, thus leaving a clue to anyone who -chose to inquire? The doubt, the question was momentary: “Isaac Oliver,” -he said, and looked the man in the face as if defying contradiction. But -the clerk had no idea of contradicting him; as well Isaac Oliver as -Harry Joscelyn to the stranger, who knew nothing about either. Five -minutes after he could not tell what had put this name into his head; -but his fate was decided, and beyond correction. He went home with a -curious feeling in his mind, not sure whether it was amusement, or -shame, or anger with himself and fate. It was all three together. He was -himself no longer, he had thrown away his birthright. What had tempted -him to take the name of Isaac Oliver he could not explain. He laughed, -but his laugh was not pleasant. He was annoyed and appalled and -disgusted with himself, but he could not alter that now. All the evening -he roamed about the riverbank, looking at the ships going out and in, -and the little steamers rustling and fuming across the gleaming water, -and all the many coloured symbols and ceaseless industry of the scene, -with a strange sense of having lost himself, of having so to speak died -in the middle of his life. He could not get over it. He was living in a -little inn which had been turned into a sort of suburban tea-garden, -instead of the little neat ale-house it once was. The weather was very -fine and warm, though it was so early in the season, and every steamboat -disgorged a crowd of visitors to sit under the half-open foliage of the -trees, and in the damp little arbours. Harry avoided all these visitors -in the fear of meeting some one who might know him. Harry! he was not -Harry any longer. The mere giving of the false name had changed him. He -did not know who he was. He was confused and confounded with the sudden -difference. Had some one called out Harry Joscelyn quickly, he thought -that it would no longer have occurred to him to answer. He was not Harry -Joscelyn; and who was he? The name he had chosen, or which some -malicious spirit had put into his head, seemed to float before him -wherever he went. He shuffled in his walk unconsciously as he fled from -himself along the margin of the great flood. What had he done? He had -abandoned not only his own name and family, but his own condition, his -place in life. Wherever he went, he would be known as a peasant, a -common countryman, he thought, never thinking in his pre-occupation that -the strangers among whom he was going knew just as much about Isaac -Oliver as about Harry Joscelyn. The night grew dark, and the great river -gleamed with a thousand sparkles of light like glowworms. Little -vessels, each with a coloured lantern, went darting across and across, -lights swung steadily with a sort of dreamy regular cadence from the -stationary ships. The stars above were not more manifold than those -little lamps below. The quiet of the night had hushed the sounds of the -great city on the other side, and all the heavy hammers and the din of -machinery: but still life was busy, coming and going, darting on a -hundred messages; pilot boats steaming out to sea, little dark tugboats -bringing back cargoes of souls out of the unknown. But Harry thought of -nothing save of the strange, unpremeditated step he had taken; that one -incident filled all the earth to him; a momentary impulse, a deed that -was scarcely his, and yet he felt that it would colour all his life. He -stayed out till the passenger boats had stopped and all the visitors -were gone. The little inn was shut up and dark, all but one little -querulous candle sitting up for him, when he went home: home! he called -this temporary refuge by that sacred name involuntarily--just such a -home he now said bitterly, as he would have for the rest of his life. -Fortunately next day the Leghorn boat was to sail, and his new start -would be made without time to think about it any more. - -Isaac Oliver took possession of his berth next morning. He went on board -early, and lounged about the deck all day. For the first time this -morning it occurred to him that they might send after him, that his -departure could not have passed altogether without notice among his -friends. He had not thought of this before, but now it came upon him -with some force. They would try to stop him at the last moment. The very -name he had chosen would betray him, for who but Harry Joscelyn would -call himself Isaac Oliver? He kept on the further side of the ship, -leaning over the bulwarks, and watched everybody who went or came with -jealous eyes. Tardy passengers came on board one after another, bringing -luggage and new items of cargo and provisions; there was scarcely a -moment without some arrival, and every one of them, Harry felt, must be -for him. When at last the gangway was detached, the anchor weighed, the -latest idler or porter put on shore, and the very screw in motion, he -felt sure there must be some last attempt, some appeal from the quay. -“Have you one of the name of Harry Joscelyn there?” he thought he could -actually hear them calling; and saw the rapid examination of the list of -passengers, and the shaking of heads of the captain and his immediate -assistants, who were standing together high above all the others. When -there could be no longer any doubt that the steamboat was off, and that -no appeal of the kind had been made, a quick and hot sense of offence -came over Harry. He had been alarmed by the idea of being identified and -stopped at the outset of his voyage: but as soon as he was certain that -he was to be allowed to proceed peaceably on that voyage, his heart -burned within him with a sense of injury. Now it was indeed all ended -and all over, his life, his name, everything to which he had been -accustomed in the past. He went below to his berth, with a sense of -complete abandonment and desolation which it would be impossible to -describe. It appeared to him that until now he had only been playing -with the idea, amusing himself with all the preparations for a change -which would never really take place, which somehow would be stopped and -prevented at the end. But nobody had put forth a finger to stop him, and -now the end was accomplished and beyond all remedy. Up to the time he -came on shipboard he had not thought of being stopped, but now he felt -as if he had expected it all the time, and was grievously injured and -heartlessly abandoned by all the world and by all his relations, not one -of whom would lift a finger on his behalf. He went down to his shabby -berth in the second cabin, and felt much disposed, like his mother, to -turn his face to the wall. But, perhaps fortunately for Harry, the sea -was rough, and when the vessel steamed out of the Mersey and felt the -full commotion of the waves outside, he was sick, and not in a condition -to care for anything. - -In this way he lost the thread of his trouble for the first two days: -and then novelty and excitement began to tell upon him, and he came -altogether to himself. No, not to himself: he did not feel clear about -who he was or what. He came to--Isaac Oliver, looking that new personage -in the face with a bewildered awe of him and wonder at him. Isaac -Oliver! who, he wondered vaguely, could he be? not a son of old Isaac, -who had only little children--a nephew or a cousin, some off-shoot of -the family, if the Olivers could be called a family, a suggestion at -which he smiled in spite of himself. That must be who he was, the -offspring of a race of peasants, no better blood, no other pretensions. -The Joscelyns were a very different class of people, but he had given -them up, he had shaken off all bonds between them and himself. “In for a -penny, in for a pound,” he said to himself, setting his face to it with -a smile, as the steamboat bore up along the Italian coast, and “the old -miraculous mountains hove in sight.” Harry did not feel any special -interest in Italy: he was of the class who never travel, and understand -but little why one place should be more interesting than another. And, -indeed, Leghorn does not sound like Italy to any traveller. What he -knew of it was that it was a busy sea-port, where there were merchants’ -offices and a thriving trade. He did not interest himself much about -anything else. He had his living to make, alone and unbefriended in a -strange country: need was that he should collect himself and pluck up a -heart and think what he was to do, now that he was so near the place of -his destination--or, at least, not what he, but young Isaac Oliver, was -to do. Would any merchant take him in without character, without -introduction or testimonial? This thought was like a cold breath going -through and through him, when he began to think. But he had still a -little money in his pocket, and could afford to wait and look about him -for a week or two. There is always something turning up in a busy place. -And Harry, accustomed to occupation all his life, could not believe that -he would ever starve where there was anything to do. - -They had touched at various other ports on the way, whose chief claims -to be visited were such as Harry had little understanding of, and the -eagerness of his fellow-passengers to get on shore and see these places -had surprised him. For his own part, he did not see the fun of going to -see a succession of churches and pictures. He had seen but few pictures -in his life, and he had never been taught that they were of much -importance. He had, indeed, privately, an honest contempt for such -things, though he said little about it. He was disposed to ask, “What -are you all staring at?” when he was brought face to face with an early -Master, a thing which he would have banished into the darkest corner had -it been his. But when he got into the harbour at Leghorn he began to -feel himself once more _dans son assiette_. He knew what the docks -meant, and appreciated the masts of the shipping better than if they had -been the most delicate works of art. It was nothing to Liverpool, but it -was something he could understand and felt at home with. He landed in -better spirits than he had experienced for a very long time. He felt a -moral certainty that he should “get on” here. - -But what a shock it was when the unaccustomed Englishman stepped first -on shore, and found himself in the midst of a strange life, of which he -did not understand even the first word! He knew very well, of course, -that it was a foreign place, and that English was not spoken there; but -he never had realized that it would be impossible by speaking loudly, or -using a sort of broken English, or some other simple contrivance, to -make the barbarous natives understand. Even an individual much better -educated than poor Harry may be excused if the shock of that -extraordinary solitude and isolation which surrounds him when he finds -himself incapable of understanding a word of what is going on, is a -surprise and irritation as well as a discomfort. He stood on the quay -with his little portmanteau by him--after having been rowed over endless -links of basins, all full of clear green sea-water, cut like a great -jelly by the progress of the boat, to the landing-place--and stood there -aghast, and, indeed, agape, hustled by the crowd, and with a grinning -porter on each side of him making offers of incomprehensible service. He -would not deliver himself over into the hands of any such harpies he was -resolved, not even when they addressed him in a word or two of English, -though the sound was as balm to his ears. He stood over his portmanteau -and angrily pushed the facchini away, but at last got hold of a lad -whose appearance pleased him, who was tidier than the rest. To him -Harry said “Hotel?” in a sort of half-questioning, half-suggestive way; -but this was not enough to get him clear of the officious crowd, who -flew at him with names which conveyed no meaning to his ears. Harry felt -like a man caught in a hailstorm as he was pelted with those big -sonorous syllables. He grew furious with confusion and bewilderment. He -had not been thought specially strong on the Fells, but here his -North-country muscles told. He pushed away the crowd, who he thought -were making a joke of him, and took up his own portmanteau. “The -gentleman is all right,” said some one beside him; “you have no -education, you are without manners, you others,” and somebody took off a -hat and made a salutation, somebody who reached to about Harry’s elbow. -It was civil, and the first part of the sentence had been said in -English, so Harry, learning by experience, conquered his wrath, and was -civil too. “Can I perhaps indicate a hotel?” this new personage said; -“Mister is an English?” Harry stood still and looked down upon his new -acquaintance, not quite clear as to the meaning of what he said. He was -a little man, small and dainty, dressed with quaint care, with high -shirt-collars, and a large black cravat tied in a bow, and the most -shining of black hats, which he took off when he spoke. He was -olive-complexioned, with big, dark, soft Italian eyes. “Mister is an -English?” he said; “by paternity I am an English, too. I will indicate a -hotel if the gentleman chooses. It will deliver him from _la canaglia_, -what you call this rabbel,” he added, with an ingratiating smile, and a -great rattle of his _r’s_. It was mere good-nature, but Harry was by no -means sure of this, and he knew that foreigners were deceivers. “Thanks, -I won’t trouble you,” he said, abruptly, and lifting his portmanteau--it -was not a big one--strode away. He felt angry and depressed, yet -excited. The astonished look of the little man, who made him another -bow, and replaced his hat with a shrug of his shoulders at the -Englishman’s want of manners, added to his discomfiture. Perhaps he had -made a fool of himself by refusing those good offices which were offered -to him, Harry thought. Perhaps he would have been a bigger fool had he -accepted. Perhaps they were all in a conspiracy to rob him. He strode on -and on, somewhat ashamed of his own appearance with the portmanteau, as -if he were too poor to pay anyone to carry it, and thoroughly -bewildered altogether amid the sounds and sights which he did not -understand. But at the end he got into an inn where there was some one -who spoke English, not such a usual accomplishment in these days as it -is now; and where he got a room which was very strange of aspect to the -untravelled young man. The half hour which he passed there, seated upon -the odd little bed, with his portmanteau at his feet upon the tiled -floor, all so strange, so desolate to Harry, was as terrible a moment as -he had ever passed in his life. His very soul was discouraged, sunk low -in his breast with a kind of physical drop and downfall. It was all he -could do not to burst out crying in his forlornness and helplessness and -solitude. What could he do in a place where he did not understand a -word? In many cases novelty is delightful, but there are some in which -it is the most dreadful of all depressing circumstances. Everything, -from the dingy tiles under his feet, and the dark eating-room -downstairs, with its unaccustomed smells, up to the blaze of the Italian -noon, and the incomprehensible tongue that everybody spoke, weighed upon -Harry. He covered his face with his hands, sitting there upon his bed. -What evil fate had led him to this unknown place? What should he do -without even a name that belonged to him, without a friend? A gasp came -into his throat, and the hand that covered his eyes was wet. He felt -himself bowed down to the very ground. - -After thus “giving way,” however, Harry braced himself up, and recovered -at least the appearance of courage. He made the best toilette he could -by the help of the small washing utensils, which were not so entirely -abhorrent to English customs then as they are now--for baths were not -very general, and washing-basins were but small, in the first quarter, -if not the first half, of this century. And then he sallied forth -refreshed--into a new world. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -A NEW WORLD. - - -Harry strayed about the town during the afternoon, losing his way, and -finding it again; but got back to the hotel before the important hour of -dinner, of which the English-speaking waiter had informed him. He was -less amused than depressed with all he saw. The perpetual talk that -seemed to be going on around him--sharp, varied, high-pitched, -incomprehensible--gave him at first a sense of offence, as if all these -people were doing it on purpose in order to bewilder him, and afterwards -a profound feeling of discouragement. He was not clever he was aware. He -had never been very great at his school work, and how was he to -accomplish the first preliminary, the very initial step of existence -here, the learning of the language, to which he had no clue, and of -which he could not make out one word? It seemed to him as if years must -elapse before he could master the very rudiments of the new tongue; and -how was he to seek for work, or to get work to do, not knowing the very -A B C of the life about him? Harry went doubling about the unfamiliar -streets, looking with wistful eyes at every passer-by who had the look -of an Englishman, and asking himself what he was to do. He did not seem -to have any spirit left for the uphill work of learning a language. -There rose up before him a vision of the exercises which he had once -laboured at, daubing himself with ink, and of the verbs which he had got -by heart overnight only to forget them in the morning. To think that he -could not even ask his way! Wherever he strayed he looked at the people -helplessly, as if he had been dumb, and anxiously examined all the -street corners, without venturing to approach any shop, or lay himself -open to any encounter. He was more fortunate than might have been -expected in this point, for he found the right street corner at last, -and the house, with its strange old courtyard, and the long dark _sala_ -which looked into it, and in which the guests were already gathering. -The house had a good reputation, and the large room was nearly full. -Harry, who had never seen anything of the kind before, saw the people -take their places, each appropriating his own turned down chair, and -half finished bottle of wine, and looked for his own place with a -curious sense of the everyday character to the others of all these -proceedings, which to him were so unusual. Yesterday, at the same hour, -no doubt they had all been here, and last year, and as long as anybody -could recollect, munching a slice from the long Italian loaf, the yard -of bread which of itself astonished his simple-minded ignorance. To -think that with such an air of routine and long establishment this -dinner should have been happening methodically every day while he was -pursuing his work at Liverpool, or taking his holiday at home. At home! -The words sounded like a bitter sarcasm to the young man, who had no -home--who had now no identity, no self to fall back upon, but had begun -to exist, so to speak, only a few days ago. And to think this table, -with all its soils and steams, should have been waiting for him all this -time! - -“’Ere, Sarr, ’ere,” said the English-speaking waiter, his black eyes -rolling in his head with pride and pleasure in this exhibition of his -gift of languages. He was holding the back of a chair which had been -carefully turned down, and was placed between a fat old Italian, with an -enormous depth of double chin, and a small figure, which Harry -recognised at once as that of the man who had spoken to him on the quay. -“De gentelman speak English,” said the waiter, bowing with amiability -and pleasure. Harry, it is to be feared, did not appreciate the -exertions made in his behalf. The little stranger, on his side, was as -smiling and bland as the attendant, delighted to make himself agreeable. -They both thought it the most pleasant thing in the world to surprise -the sulky and speechless Englishman with a companion to whom he could -talk. “Mister have found his way after all to the Leone,” said his -friend, “I wish myself joy of it. It is what I most did desire. He is -the best hotel, the very best hotel in all Livorno. Most of the -strangers, what we call forestieri, find their ways here. Mister will -find himself very comfortable; the kitchen is excellent, and the -chambers--the chambers!” here the little man spread out his hands with -ecstatic admiration, “so clean, so comfortable; everything an -Englishman desire.” - -Harry was cross, and he was suspicious. He thought the reappearance of -his first acquaintance looked like a conspiracy, and that probably -between the man and the waiter it was an understood thing that the -Englishman, who was so ignorant, should be made to pay for his -initiation into foreign ways. But he had no intention of being made to -pay if he could possibly help it. He had not the slightest understanding -of the waiter’s benevolent wish to make him comfortable, or the innocent -satisfaction of the other, at once in showing off himself and his -acquirements and showing kindness to a stranger. Harry did not realize -the national character in both, which made them pleased to serve him, -and anxiously on the watch for the look of pleasure which they -anticipated as their reward. An English servant would have looked on -with anticipations of another kind. He would have watched to see the -stranger’s hand stealing into his pocket: and on this point no doubt -Antonio had as sharp an eye as anyone; but his Italian soul, asked for -something more; he wanted to see a glow of pleasure in the face of the -person to whom he had just, as he thought, done a service. Harry -refused to pay in this wise. His countenance, somewhat dark before, -settled down into a heavier gloom. He drew in his chair to the table -roughly, losing part of his companion’s address: and he did not look at -the young man who was talking to him, or give him any recompense for the -effort he was making. After a while he made a remark, but it was not a -very civil one. “Why do you call me Mister?” was what he said. - -The stranger looked at him, complacent still, but yet a trifle -abashed--“Because,” he said, stroking a small moustache, and fixing his -eyes upon Harry with a smiling yet deprecating glance, “I do not know -the gentleman’s name.” - -“Even if you don’t know a fellow’s name,” said Harry, ruthless, “it -isn’t English to say Mister. Mister is a title of contempt.” Here the -horrified look of his new acquaintance made him pause. “I mean when it’s -used alone without the name. Low people sometimes use it so--but nobody -who speaks decent English,” Harry said. As he spoke the stranger’s olive -countenance caught flame and grew crimson. He laughed an embarrassed, -uncomfortable little laugh. - -“It is that I am mistaken,” he said; “I have not spoke English moch. The -gentleman will pardon my error. My name is Paolo Thompson,” he said, -with a little wave of the hand, introducing himself. - -“You would like to know my name,” said Harry. - -The Italian-Englishman replied, not with any expression of offence, but -with a smiling bow. - -“My name is----” he made a pause. He looked at the interested -countenance beside him, a sense of the ludicrous mingling with his -suspicious distrust of all strangers and foreigners. What did it matter -what he said to a little impostor like this? “Oliver,” he added, with a -laugh. He almost thought the little fellow, though not an Englishman, -must see the incongruity, the absurdity, of associating the name of -Oliver with such a person as Harry Joscelyn. It suddenly became a -practical joke to him, a masquerade which everyone must see through. - -“O---- livr,” said little Thompson, with a long emphasis upon the first -letter, and a hurried slur over the rest; “that right? alright! Mister -O--lvr.” - -“Not Mister,” said Harry, growing benevolent as he felt a little -amusement steal over him, and he tried to give his new acquaintance the -_nuance_ of sound which divides the Mr. of English use and wont from -the two distinct syllables of which Paolo was so fond. They grew friends -over this attempt at unity of pronunciation, or rather Harry permitted -himself to grow friendly, and to ask himself what harm this little -foreigner could do him--a little hop o’ my thumb, whom he could lift in -one hand. As he laughed over his new friend’s attempt to catch the -difference of sound, his friendly feeling increased. He felt his -superiority more and more, and in that superiority his suspicions melted -away. As for little Paolo he took everything amiably. He had no -objection to be laughed at. - -“You mean not bad,” he said, “I know; you mean not to make angry. Laugh, -it is a way of us English. My father was an Englishman. I never know -him; he was died before I am born; but I too am an English by origin. It -is for that I have my place. I am Interpreter. I put what you say in -Italian. I put what one would say to you in English. Thus I please to -both,” said the little man with lively satisfaction; and he laughed when -Harry laughed with genuine good faith. Perhaps it was the reaction from -his past despondency which made Harry laugh so much, perhaps the little -bravado of a stranger feeling himself gazed at and isolated among a -crowd of people alien to him. He attracted the eyes of all the guests at -the table-d’hôte especially of some Americans who had come in late, and -one other Englishman who regarded him gloomily from the other end of the -table, and concluded that his countryman was having too much to drink, -but that it was not his business. Harry was not taking too much to -drink; he was making wry faces at the sour Nostrali, which was the only -wine provided without a special order. Harry did not understand any wine -except Port and Sherry, and he despised the sour stuff of which he took -one big gulp and no more; he did not know what else to order, and he did -not like to mix up Paolo in his affairs so far as to ask his advice on -this point. Paolo for his part was drinking a little of his wine in a -tumblerful of water, not without some alarm lest the _eau rougie_ should -go to his head. He told Harry all his story as they sat together. His -father had been an English clerk, sent out from England to an office in -Leghorn, who had married an Italian girl, and died in the first year of -their marriage. Paolo was very proud of that fine and aristocratic name -of Thompson, of which there was a Lord and many Sirs, he informed Harry -with great but smiling seriousness; his mother, though she had been so -young, would never re-marry herself, though pressed on all sides to do -so--such was her devotion to her youthful husband who was English, and -to the romantic and euphonious name which he had left her. The young man -grew every moment more friendly. Harry’s suspicions all floated away as -he listened to the story, and laughed at the accent and grammar of his -new acquaintance, who laughed too with perfect good-humour. Thompson--he -was a fit associate for an Oliver, Harry said to himself, knowing -nothing about any Oliver save Isaac whose name he had appropriated. -After dinner was over Paolo proposed that they should go for a stroll; -and though Harry had done nothing else but stroll all the afternoon with -very small advantage, yet he was quite willing to begin again with the -aid of his friend’s knowledge. It was less lonely than sitting in the -dreadful little room of which Paolo had ventured to say that it was so -comfortable, and exactly what an Englishman liked. Harry shuddered at -the thought; he had never been used to sit in his bedroom, and he could -not but feel it a sort of humiliation that he had no other room to sit -in. His new friend was a wonderful example of costume to the untrained -taste of Harry. He wore trousers of a large check, but a black evening -coat over them, a large shirt-front, a black ribbon at his neck tied in -a bow, and varnished shoes. He was very well contented with his -appearance. When he added an opera-hat to all this finery, the sensation -in his little bosom of thorough self-content was very warm. Harry could -not but laugh at the little exquisite, whose gorgeous apparel was so -unlike anything he had ever seen. - -“I don’t know if I dare to walk out in my coloured clothes with such a -swell as you are, Thompson,” he said. Paolo looked down upon himself -delighted. He knew he was well-dressed. - -“You are all right,” he said, “an English, that covers all; but when one -is only by origin, more must be done. Komm a-long.” He stretched up his -hand, which he had just clothed in light kid, to Harry’s arm, who had no -gloves, nor any other advantage. The Angelus was sounding from all the -churches as they set out. Harry could not but wonder if there was an -evening sermon, or if it was a series of prayer-meetings which were -going on. He was much surprised that foreigners should have such devout -habits. It surprised him, too, to see how soon it got dark; but as it -happened there was a brilliant moon which soon made the streets as light -as day. And as soon as the sacred hour of sunset, the fatal hour which -Italians dread, was over, the streets filled with a crowd which still -more surprised Harry. Before all the cafés the pavements were -crowded--not only men, but women, seated at the little tables enjoying -the freshness of the lovely evening, and making such a hum and babble of -talk as nothing but an unknown tongue can produce. A language which is -familiar to us never sounds so like an uproar and tumult as one that is -unintelligible. Harry’s first thought was that the people about him were -all quarrelling; his second that this chatter was the riotous and -boundless gaiety which he had always heard attributed to “foreigners;” -but the scene amused him, though it was so unintelligible, and by and by -a degree of toleration which years at home could not have conveyed to -him, began to penetrate his mind. Perhaps after all it was only the -different habits of these unknown people, and neither quarrelling nor -riot. Sometimes one would jump up in the midst of a conversation as if -impelled by a sudden outburst of fury, and address his friends, -gesticulating wildly; but after Harry had taken the alarm, and sat ready -to strike in if any harm happened, he noticed that the friends of the -violent person took it quite calmly, turning upon him looks which were -full of smiling placidity, and evidently fearing nothing. In the same -way when two men were threading their way along the street together, one -would suddenly drop the other’s arm, and standing still, discourse with -every mark of excitement for a minute, then resume his friend’s arm and -go on again as if there had been no interruption. An Englishman would -have knocked down his adversary with much less demonstration. Harry felt -himself obliged to pause too, and give an eye to these personages; and -when he also sat down with his companion at one of the little tables, -his attention to Paolo’s doubtful English was constantly interrupted by -the same supposed need of watchfulness in case the party next to them -should come to blows. But all the other people took it quite quietly, to -Harry’s great surprise. - -“Why do these beggars jump up in that way and look as if they were going -to knock some other fellow down?” Harry said at last. - -“Beggares?” said Paolo, looking round hastily; and then, for he was a -young man anxious to improve himself and quick of apprehension, he -jumped at the Englishman’s meaning. “Ah! that is English for questi -Signori, these gentlemen? beggares! capisco, capisco!” said Paolo, -clapping his hands as at an excellent joke; “they do nothing but make a -little conversation, what you call talk,--these beggares;” and he burst -forth once more into a genial peal. - -Harry was half pleased to have achieved such a facile success, and half -alarmed lest perhaps Paolo might be laughing at him. He said with a -suppressed growl, “Conversation! do you call that conversation? I -thought they were going to fly at each other’s throats.” - -“No, no, no--never fly at each other’s throats; they have too much -education,” said Paolo; “it is the Italian animation, that is all. An -English is what you call quiet. He talks down here, not out of his -mout,” and Paolo beat himself upon the breast, and pointed to about the -spot out of which Harry’s deep bass proceeded. Harry was by no means -pleased with this familiarity, but he reflected that the little man was -his only friend among all these strangers, and subdued his displeasure. -He did not know very well what to do with the pink syrup that was -furnished him to drink: that, and the sour wine, and the black coffee, -were all alike out of Harry’s way. Oh, that he could have had but one -mighty draught of English beer to clear all these cobwebs out of his -throat! But this was an indulgence, like so many others, to be hoped for -no more. - -After Paolo had sipped the rosolio which Harry contemplated with such a -mingling of alarm and disgust, they got up and continued their walk. -By-and-bye, in the full moonlight, they strolled towards the port, and -walked about on the quays, among the shipping, which threw up its black -lines of masts, and dark lace of cordage against the silvery light of -which the sky was full. Harry was interested about all this, much more -than about churches or pictures. And he threaded his way among the -ropes, and piles of barrels and cases with which the quays were -encumbered, with a stir of curiosity and hope. Should he find his life -and work within the circle which surrounded these instruments of wealth? -He paid but little attention to the talk of his companion as they went -along. He seemed to see once more the new career before him which he had -been doubting an hour or two before. It was not a very magnificent -prospect: yet work that suited him might surely be found when there were -goods to be exported, and counting houses to look after these goods. He -did not know what might become of him in this strange place, but -whatever his fortune might be it was all he could look forward to, and -his mind seemed to take a new start from the appearance before him of a -possibility, a strain of existence which he understood. He forgot, as he -listened to Paolo’s chatter going on by his side--which filled him with -a vague, superficial sense of superiority--all about the new language to -be learned, and the difficulties which had almost overwhelmed him in the -afternoon. Thus he went on, allowing his companion to talk, and thinking -his own thoughts, till they emerged from the immediate regions of the -basins and docks and came back to the streets. They were crossing one -which was very dimly lighted, and which Paolo informed him led into the -better quarter of the town, when they came in sight, or, rather in -hearing, of a party of sailors in a noisy state of exhilaration. What -could they have been drinking, Harry wondered, thinking of the sour wine -and the rosolio, to make them so convivial? They were singing rude -choruses, and making night hideous with jokes and loud laughter, bearing -a wonderful family resemblance to noises of the same kind which Harry -had heard near the port of Liverpool--when there suddenly crossed the -moonlit-road, between the revellers and the two orderly passengers, a -couple of female figures moving rapidly, figures very easily identified -as those of an elder and younger woman--a sedate and ample personage, -with a girl clinging to her. Two of the sailors, with a holloa of -satisfaction, started forward in pursuit. They overtook the women when -they were close to Harry and his companion, and one of them seized the -girl by the arm. She gave a frightened cry, and the other woman, -throwing her arm round her, pushed the men away, pouring forth a volley -of rapid Italian, of which Harry of course did not understand a word. He -made a stride forward to the fray. Paolo, on his side, who was small and -not valorous, did his best to hold him back. - -“It is not our business,” he said, with a certain faltering in his -voice. - -“Tell them to let go the girl,” said Harry, with brief determination. - -“It is not our business,” said the alarmed interpreter. - -“Tell them they had better let go that girl,” repeated the young -Englishman. - -Then little Paolo stood forth, with a courage which was not his own, and -addressed the sailors. He took off his hat with the utmost politeness -and remonstrated. Harry, beginning, by dint of hearing them repeated, to -distinguish the words, at last understood that “Questo Signor” must mean -himself; but the sailors treated the remonstrance with contempt. The -other one took hold of the girl by the other arm, while she screamed, -and her companion raved and scolded at them, pushing and struggling with -all her might. Harry stepped forward into the moonlight. He lifted up -his clenched fist and his big bass voice. “Let go that girl,” he shouted -in good English, with a voice that roused all the echoes. The men did -not know a word he said; but they understood him, which was more to the -purpose. They let go their hold in a minute, and stood staring at the -intruder as sheepishly as any Englishmen could have done, and perhaps -also with a touch of shame. Little Paolo, trembling yet triumphant, kept -close to the champion, while he stood and faced them, ready for -whatever might happen. It was not for nothing that Harry was a -Joscelyn. He stood well up to them with a watchful eye and a ready arm. -The women had escaped under cover of this unexpected interposition from -their first assailants, but another pursuer by this time had got upon -their track. “Let’s have a look at your face, my pretty lass,” this lout -said, as he rolled along. Harry’s blood was up in a moment. “Oh, by -Jove!” he cried, as if the sound of his native tongue had been the last -aggravation, “this is too much. I know what to say to you, at least, my -fine fellow,” and he turned upon his countryman like lightning, and -promptly knocked him down. “I am not going to stand any nonsense from -_you_,” he said. - -It was the affair of a moment--no more. The women flew along the street, -disappearing up the nearest opening. Harry strode on after them with his -blood up, but walking with the most dignified tranquillity. He would not -even turn round to see what had happened. “If he thought I was going to -stand _him_,” he said, as he went along, “that fellow, by Jove! but he -was in the wrong box.” As for little Paolo, between fright and -admiration, he was at his wit’s end. He danced along, now hurrying -Harry on, now facing the other way, walking backwards to keep the other -party in sight, and uttering alarmed entreaties. “Run! run! What if you -’ave kill him?” he cried. “Vergene Santissima! they are coming. You ’ave -done it now, you ’ave done it, and no one to help. Per Bacco! and he -goes as if it were a festa. Run, Mister, run!” - -“I told you not to call me Mister,” said Harry, walking on with perfect -coolness and at his ordinary pace. Paolo was half beside himself. -“Perhaps you have kill a man,” he cried, “and you stop to set right my -English--at such a moment----” - -“Pooh!” said Harry; he would not have quickened his steps for a fortune. -“Don’t you know the beggar is an Englishman? A broken head won’t hurt -him. Let’s keep the women in sight, they might get into more trouble.” -Paolo followed him, trembling and hurried as they got further off; but -the noisy sailors were busy about their fallen comrade, and made no -attempt to follow. They were too much startled by the summary -proceedings of the stranger, and kept back by a certain sense of justice -which seldom fails in such an affray. The little Italian kept close to -Harry like a dog, rushing about him, now a little in advance, now a -little behind. “He ’ave pick himself up,” he said, looking back. “Dio! -how the English understand each other! He is not kill.” - -“Killed!” cried Harry, contemptuously. “It takes more than that to kill -an Englishman, even a beast like that fellow. You may palaver with your -own kind, but I know what to do with mine. Come along, Thompson. Where -have those women gone?” - -Here Paolo caught him by the arm, dragging him into the narrow street by -which the flying figures had disappeared. One side of it was in almost -perfect darkness, while the other was white and brilliant in the -moonlight. “You like to know who it was,” he said. “Per Bacco! I know.” - -“It does not matter to me who it was,” said Harry, “so long as they are -safe, that is all I care for. Women have no business to be out so late -at night.” - -At this Paolo nodded his head a great many times in assent. “But that is -English too,” he said. “How you are strange! You let a young lady go in -the street, and you kill a man, and never think more of it! and the man -when he is kill, get up and walk away instead of to avenge himself! You -are strange, very strange. I understand you very well, for I am an -English too.” - -After this somewhat startling incident, however, they did not linger -long on their way. It had stirred the blood in Harry’s veins and given -him the new start he wanted. There is nothing like a new incident for -familiarising the mind with any great change in this life. Hitherto he -had thought of nothing but his own transmogrification. Now he had -something else to think of. He got back to his inn unmolested and -uninterrupted, and he found his dreary little room not so dreary when it -became a shelter for his fatigue, and a refuge in which to think over -the strange excitement of this first new day. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -SETTING OUT IN LIFE. - - -Next morning Harry was woke by the appearance of his little friend at -his bedside. For a moment it was all fantastic to him like a dream, the -narrow slip of room with its tall walls, and straight windows, and the -strange little figure by his bedside. “Hallo,” he said, “who are you, -and what do you want?” opening his sleepy eyes, and springing up in bed. -Paolo retreated with a little alarm. - -“I go to the bureau,” he said, “but before I go I am here to say good -morning. What will you do without me?” the little man added with great -simplicity. “Get lost, get into what you call skrape. Antonio, he speak -a little. I come to advise that you take him with you. It will be only -five lire, not very moche for an English.” - -“I wish you could remember,” said Harry pettishly, “to say an -Englishman. An English is no sense: you never hear _me_ say that.” - -“Alright,” said Paolo good-humouredly. “I will remember; but it will be -better to take Antonio; he shows you everything, all the palaces and -streets, and you give him cinque lire--five,” holding up his fingers -spread out to show the sum, and counting them with his other hand, “and -you talk, he tell you things in Italian, you make a lesson out of him,” -he added with a grin, showing all his white teeth. - -It was a sensible suggestion, but Harry was perverse. “That is all very -well,” he said, “but I don’t care about seeing your palaces; what I want -is to get something to do. Ain’t there a _Times_, or something with -advertisements? where a fellow could see what’s wanted?” - -Paolo looked at him with a doubtful air, and his head on one side like a -questioning sparrow. He was so small and so spare, and Harry so big, -stretched out in the small bed which could not contain him, that the -simile held in all points. It appeared unnecessary that he should do -more than put out his hand to make an end altogether of his adviser, and -there seemed a consciousness of this in the little man himself, who, -recollecting last night, hopped a little farther off every time that -Harry advanced leaning on his elbow, and projecting himself out of bed. - -“You bring letters, you are recommended?” he said. “No?” A cloud came -over Paolo’s face; then he brightened again. “You come with me,” he -said. “The Consul, that is the prince of the English--man. You come wid -me, and I will recommend you. I will introduce you. He have much -confidence, what you call trost, in me.” - -“But you don’t know anything about me,” said Harry. - -Paolo looked at him with an effusion of admiration and faith, “Siamo -amici,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart with a sentiment and air -which to the cynical Englishman were nothing less than theatrical. But -Harry did not understand what the words meant. - -“That is all very well,” he said again, supposing that this was a mere -compliment without meaning. “But what could you say about me? nothing! -You don’t know me any more than the Consul does--or anybody here.” - -“Between friends,” said Paolo, “there is not the need of explanation. I -understand you, Mister. Are you a Christian or a Protestant,” he added -quickly, “have you a name of baptism, perhaps?” Paolo did not want to -hurt the feelings of his new friend in case he was not provided with -this article. But Harry’s pride was wounded to the quick. - -“A Christian,” he cried, “or a Protestant? I am both a Protestant and a -Christian! I never heard such horrible intolerance in all my life. It is -you who are not Christians, you papists praying to idols--worshipping -saints, and old bones, and all sort of nonsense.” Harry was so much in -earnest that his face grew crimson, and Paolo retreated yet another -step. - -“You heat yourself; but it is not needed,” he said, waving his hand with -deprecating grace. “Me, I am above prejudices. Here one calls one’s self -Giovanni or Giacomo, or Paolo, as with me; and when the person is -respectable of years, Ser Giovanni or Ser Giacomo; but if one has not a -name of baptism, it is the same, that make no difference----” - -“Do you take me for a heathen that never was christened?” cried Harry. -“My name is----” here he stopped and laughed, but grew redder, with a -dusky colour; but “in for penny in for a pound,” as he had already -remarked to himself--“my name is Isaac--Isaac Oliver, as I told you,” -he said. - -“Bene, bene!” said Paolo. “It is enough, I will say to the consul: here -is Mister Isaac, who is my friend. He is English--man; yes, I -recollect--man; and I respond for him. He will be so condescending as to -take a situation; he will interpret like me; he will make the Italian -into the English, and the English into the Italian.” - -“But how can I do that?” said Harry, “when I don’t understand one word -of your lingo? I can’t do that.” - -Paolo’s countenance lengthened once more; but he speedily recovered -himself. - -“That will teach itself,” he said. “I will talk; I will tell you -everything. Aspetto! there is now, presently, incessantly--an occasion. -Komm, komm along; something strikes me in the head. But silence, the -Vice-Consul, he it is that will settle all.” - -Harry did not think much of Paolo’s recommendation; but yet the idea of -appealing to the Vice-Consul was worth consideration. The thought of an -Englishman to whom he could tell his story--or if not his story, yet a -story, something which would seem as an account of himself--was like a -rope thrown out to him amid a waste of waters. And, as an Englishman, he -would have a right to be listened to. English officials are not like -American, the natural vassals of their countrymen; but still, when a man -is at his wit’s end, there is something in the idea that a person of -authority, in whom he has a vested interest, is within reach, which is -consolatory. To be introduced to this functionary, however, by Paolo, -whose position did not seem to be very important, did not please Harry’s -pride. He sent the little fellow away with a vague promise of thinking -of it, which disappointed the friendly little man. Paolo could not -restrain his anxious desire to be of use. He went off to the Farmacia to -buy soap and tooth-powder for his amico, and even proposed to fetch him -the little bicchierino of acquavite, with which some people begin their -day, a proposal which filled Harry with horror. Paolo put his -dressing-table in order with the care of a woman, and lingered, anxious -to do something more. He would have brushed his friend’s clothes, if -Harry would have let him. He was proud of his new discovery, the big -Englishman, whom he had secured to himself, and whom he admired in -proportion to his own smallness and inconsiderableness. Something of -the pleasure of a nurse with an infant, and of a child with a new toy, -was in his bustling anxious delight. When at last, however, he was half -forced, half persuaded to go away, Paolo made a few steps back from the -door and held up a warning finger. - -“Mister Isaack mio,” he said, “one must not any more knock down. It is -not understood in Livorno. That which can well do itself in England is -different: here--it is not understood.” His face had become very grave, -then a deprecatory smile of apology broke over it. “In Italy they are in -many things behind,” he said. “It is not--understood.” - -“Don’t be afraid, Paul-o,” said Harry, laughing, “I shan’t knock down -anyone to-day. Even in England we don’t do it but when it is necessary. -You may trust me, I shall knock nobody down to-day.” - -“Alright, alright!” said Paolo, with a beaming countenance. He turned -back again to instruct his friend at what hour it would be best to come -to the bureau. “I will speak, and you shall be expected. I will respond -for you,” the little man said. - -At last he went away full of amiable intentions and zeal in his friend’s -cause, zeal which deserved a better reward. For Harry did not build -much upon the influence of Paolo. It hurt his pride to think of -presenting himself anywhere under the wing of this little Italian clerk. -He would stand upon his own qualities, he said to himself, not upon the -ready faith and rash undertaking of a stranger; but though he put it in -this way, it was not in reality because he objected to Paolo’s trust in -him, or thought it rash as another man might have done, but because he -felt himself Paolo’s social superior. It would be hard to say on what -this consciousness was founded. Harry’s only superiority had been his -family, and that he had put away. As he was dressing, he turned over a -great many things in his mind which he might say to the Vice-Consul. Few -young people understand how much better policy it is in all such cases -to speak the truth than to invent the most plausible of stories, and -Harry was not wiser than his kind. He made up various fictions about -himself explaining how it was that he thus presented himself alone and -unfriended in an altogether strange place--all of which he would have -stated with a faltering tongue and abashed countenance, so as to impress -the falsehood of them upon the hearer; for to invent excuses is one -thing, and to produce them with force and consistency another. -Successful lying, like everything else, wants practice; few men can -succeed in it who only do it once in a way. It requires study, and -careful consideration of probabilities, so that the artist shall not be -put entirely out by an unforeseen question: and it needs an excellent -memory, to retain all that has been said, so as not to contradict -previous statements. Harry possessed none of these qualities, but then -he was not aware of the want of them; and the thing which made him -depart from tale after tale was not any suspicion of their weakness, or -his weakness, but an inability to please himself in the details of his -romance. And then the thought of going as it were hat in hand, to ask -the Consul to provide him with employment, and the inevitable starting -forth of little Paolo to pledge himself for everything his friend might -say, discouraged him. He grew downhearted as he put himself into the -best apparel he had, and brushed his hair, and endeavoured to look his -best. Would it not be better to start off again, to go, though he had -made up his mind against it, to America after all? There, there would be -no language to learn, no difficulty in understanding what was said to -him. He went down and swallowed his breakfast, coffee and bread, which -seemed to him the most wretched fare, turning this over in his mind. But -for one thing he did not like to be beaten; no Englishman does, he said -to himself; and Harry was of the primitive, simple kind of Englishman -who clings to all national characteristics. He could not bear to be -beaten, to contradict himself as it were, and depart from his plan. -While he was thinking of all this, however, a brilliant expedient -occurred to him. Though he was reluctant to tell his own story, he was -not disposed to screen himself by any fiction of excuses from the -consequences of anything he had done; and it was undeniable that he had -“got into a row” on the previous night. No Englishman, he reflected, -would think the worse of a young fellow who had knocked down a drunken -sailor to prevent him from molesting a woman; but it would be as well to -go and tell the story of this little incident in case of any ulterior -proceedings. Harry fairly chuckled over his own wisdom in hitting upon -so admirable a way of presenting himself to the representative of his -country. He had never before felt himself so clever. He munched his dry -bread and drank his coffee with a wry face, but something like a mental -relish at least. Little Paolo’s friendly conscience would not need to be -strained. He would be able to bear witness of the facts in all -sincerity, and, if anything were to come of it, there would be at least -a friend in court, a valuable advocate secured. Antonio, the waiter, -drew near while Harry came to this conclusion, and watched him -dispatching his simple refreshment with friendly looks. The Italians -admired the young Englishman’s fine limbs, and height and strength, and -they made a pet of him because he was a stranger and helpless; perhaps -the waiter was not without an eye to substantial rewards, but he had at -the same time a most friendly eye to Harry’s helplessness, and an -amiable desire to make him comfortable. He stood and watched him eating -with sympathy. - -“Ze gentleman would like an egg, perhaps, Sarr?” he said. - -“I should like half-a-dozen,” said Harry with a sigh; “but no, no, never -mind--never mind; for the present this will do.” - -“Ze gentlemen Italian eat no breakfast,” said Antonio; “ze eat--after; -but I will command for ze English gentleman, if it makes pleasure to -him, ze English breakfast. There is already one here.” - -“One--breakfast!” said Harry, surprised. - -“One,” said Antonio, with a finger in the air, “English-man, and two -tree Americans; ze eat of ze beef in ze early morning. It is -extraordinary: eat of ze beef when you comes out of your bed. But it is -the same--it is the same; that makes nothing to our padrone; and I will -command it for ze gentleman if he will.” - -“I wish you would,” said Harry, “another time; dry bread is not much to -breakfast upon: and the bread is very queer stuff.” - -“It is good bread,” said Antonio, “Sarr, very good bread; bettare far -than ze bread of London;” he nodded his head as he spoke with -self-satisfaction. “Ze gentleman would like me go wid him--show him all -ze places, and ze grand catedral, and all that ze English gentleman go -over ze world to see?” - -“No, Antonio; I don’t care about cathedrals, but you can come with me to -the English Consul’s if you like, and show me the way.” - -“I like very moche, Sarr,” said Antonio, with a grin. “Ze English -gentlemans please me. Zey is astonished at everyting. Ze pictures--O! -bellissimi! and ze palazzi, and ze churches. It is noting but O! and O! -as long as zey are walking about. But, Sarr,” said Antonio, coming -closer, “Livorno is not moche. It is a city of trade. Com to Firenze, -Sarr, if you would see beautiful pictures and beautiful houses. Ah! that -is something to see. Or to Venezia--better still. I am of Venezia, Sarr. -Ze gentleman will not say to Signor Paolo that I tell him so, but -Livorno--pouff!” Antonio blew it away in a puff of disdain. “Firenze and -Venezia, there is where you will see pictures--everyware--of Raphael and -Michael Angelo, and Tiziano, and----” - -“I don’t care much about pictures,” said Harry, calmly. “I like the -shipping better. You can take me to the docks if you like. I don’t want -you to tell me about them. I like to see things I know about myself. But -I tell you what, Antonio, you may teach me the names in Italian, if you -like; that will always be making a little progress,” Harry said, -suddenly bethinking himself of Paolo’s suggestion. - -Antonio’s face had lengthened by several inches. An English gentleman -who did not want to see pictures was a personage of whom he had no -understanding. He began to think that Harry was not a genuine -Englishman after all. - -“Ze signor is perhaps Tedesco--no? Or Americain--no? I have known many -English,” said Antonio, gravely, “but zey all run after ze pictures. Ze -gentleman is what you call an original. Benissimo! that makes noting to -me. Ze sheeps in ze harbour are very fine sheeps. You will not see no -bettare--no, not in England. Ze signor wishes--eh?--perhaps to make -observations, to let ze Government--ze ministers know, Italy is now a -great country, and ze others are jealous. You fear we will take ze trade -all away?” - -“Not so bad as that, Antonio,” said Harry, with a great laugh. “Where I -have come from I wish I could show you the docks; they are about ten -times as big as these.” - -Antonio grinned from ear to ear. He did not believe a word of what Harry -said. “If it pleases to ze gentleman,” he said, laughing too. He was -perfectly tolerant of the joke, and glad to see his _protegé_ cheerful. -Then Harry jumped up from the table, poorly sustained for the business -he had in hand by his light meal, but somewhat anxious to get through -the ordeal he had proposed to himself. Antonio, however, who appeared -presently in the well-worn and assiduously brushed costume of a _laquais -de place_, could not quite let him off the inevitable sightseeing. He -led him to the Duomo and into the great Square with a pretence that this -was on the way to the Consul’s office, and made him look at again, -whether he would or not, the same public buildings which he had gazed at -dreamily as he wandered about the streets the day before, and looked at -languidly in the moonlight under Paolo’s active guidance. He had been -but twenty-four hours in Leghorn, and already he had associations with -the street-corners, which probably he would never forget. Already this -new world was acquiring known features of acquaintanceship; his life -beginning to put forth threads like a spider’s web, and twist and twine, -the new with the old. It startled Harry to feel that he was no longer a -stranger here, where he had landed so forlorn. After the round which -Antonio beguiled him into making, it was about eleven o’clock before -they reached the door over which the well-known British symbol was put -up. The outer office was full of people and business, sea-captains and -merchants’ clerks, and even a few examples of the kind of traveller who -is most common in Italy, he who travels for pleasure and not for -business. Harry had to wait among the rest who were seeking an audience -of the Vice-Consul. Here Antonio left him, and he could not see anything -like the olive-countenance and brilliant costume of Paolo; but it was an -English group among which he stood. The clerks even spoke English, if -one or two of them displayed the tongue-tied hesitation which is common -to all classes when they speak a language imperfectly understood. One of -the tourists did his best to draw Harry into conversation, lamenting the -cruel fate which had detained him in such a place. He was just starting -for Pisa, this pilgrim said, where there was really something to see. -“One might as well be in Liverpool as here,” he said. Harry did not make -any reply. This was just the reason why he himself approved of Leghorn -more than of any other place he had seen. When it came to his turn at -last, almost all the other appellants and petitioners had been seen and -dismissed. They all wanted something; and Harry’s new acquaintance had -talked and worried him so much with his dislike to a place where there -was so little to see, that he had almost forgot the manner in which he -had arranged with himself to open his own story; when at length -everybody else was despatched, and he had to go forward to his audience. -His heart beat a little faster as he went in. The Vice-Consul was a man -of a portly presence, something like an English merchant of the higher -class, with grizzled hair, and an aspect of great respectability and -authority. He was fully conscious of his dignity as the representative -of the British Government, and of Her Majesty herself, amid an alien and -inferior race. He did not think much of Italy or the Italian people, and -he felt it was his mission in life to keep them down. He was seated in -great state upon a large chair, which swung round with him when he -moved. His table, his papers, the manner in which he appeared over them, -with the air of a judge on the bench, was very imposing to a stranger, -especially when that stranger was in difficulty and came to ask help. He -made Harry a very formal bow, and pointed to a seat near, which had -something of the air of a seat for the prisoner at the bar. - -“What can I do for you?” he said, with a dignified inclination of his -head; after the first glance his look softened. He was used to see a -great many people, and it was a compliment to Harry’s appearance that -it interested the Vice-Consul. He almost smiled upon him, with a -benignity in which he did not very often indulge. - -Then it was that Harry’s real difficulties began; but how thankful he -was that it was a true story he was telling, and not a fictitious -account of himself! - -“I came to tell you, Sir,” he said, “of something that occurred last -night--a scrape--that is to say a row I got into. I suppose I must call -it a row.” - -“It is a great pity when strangers get into rows in a foreign town, -Mr.----Oliver. I think you said Oliver?” - -What a fool I was thought Harry!--as he did after every new production -of that name; but his last chance of reclaiming his own was now over. - -“What you say is quite true,” he said, “and I should not have been such -a fool but for urgent cause. I knocked down a fellow who was annoying a -lady. He deserved a great deal more than I gave him; if he had been an -Italian I might have hesitated, but he was an Englishman. So I just -knocked him down.” - -“Very wrong, very wrong,” said the Vice-Consul, “and a curious way of -showing your preference for your fellow-countrymen. But you had better -tell me all about it. When did this occur, and where?” - -Harry described the place as well as he could. “There was a lot of -them,” he said. “The Italians--if they were Italians--gave way when I -spoke to them. I’ll do them that justice. The English fellow, I did not -say anything to him. I was not going to argue with a brute like that. I -just quietly knocked him down. It was a young lady and a woman with her. -You see, if I had stood there talking, the others might have been up to -us, and have given her more annoyance. I daresay it did not hurt the -fellow much; and if he’s a man he’ll take it quietly, for he deserved -it; but I thought it was perhaps best to let you know.” - -The Vice-Consul had started slightly when Harry described, as well as he -could, the locality in which this incident took place. Now he asked -quickly, “And the lady--did you know her? and did she get clean away?” - -“Know her!” said Harry, “I only arrived here yesterday; besides I did -not want to know her: it might not have been pleasant for her. We -watched her safe out of reach; indeed we went on till we heard a door -shut where she lived, I suppose. No, it was not for that. It was to say -that if the fellow complained, or brought any action, or anything of -that sort--I wanted you, Sir, being the representative of England, to -know the real facts. That is how it was.” - -There was a smile about the Vice-Consul’s mouth. “As it happens I have -heard about it already,” he said. “I’ll speak to you farther on the -subject by-and-bye--Don’t be alarmed, it will do you no harm; sit down -and rest yourself, and wait for a few minutes. I am going in to lunch -presently, and I’ll talk to you then,” the Vice-Consul said. Harry did -not know what to think. The consequences could not be very bad, since -this great functionary restrained a smile; but there was evidently a -second chapter to the adventure. Harry withdrew as he was directed to -the other end of the office, and there stood gazing at railway -timetables, and pictures of ships. There was all about a line of vessels -to America from Genoa which had lately been established, just the very -thing for him if he intended to do what he had been thinking of. But -Harry scarcely knew what he was looking at. All these questions seemed -things of the past. What was the Vice-Consul going to say to him? What -was to come of it? Till he knew this he could not think of anything -else. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE VICE-CONSUL’S DAUGHTER. - - -A door in the Vice-Consul’s office opened into a long passage with a row -of windows on one side, which communicated with his house. When the hour -came at which, after the comfortable fashion of leisurely Italian towns, -the office was shut up for the midday meal, the Vice Consul made Harry -an amiable sign to follow. He led him through this passage, which looked -upon a courtyard full of plants, where a fountain trickled in the -sunshine, into a large cool room with all its _jalousies_ closed, and in -which for a minute or two he saw nothing. He was being introduced into a -sort of enchanted country it seemed, unlike anything he had ever known -or thought of; the tiled floor was almost covered with soft rugs, -according to a fashion not then known in England, and the furniture -dimly discerned in the gloom, was like rocks at sea to the stranger who -had no chart of the confused and intricate passage. Something white in a -corner, something which moved a little when they came in, was all he -saw, and he could not make out even what that was till his eyes had got -accustomed to the light. Then he perceived with a great tremor and shock -of shyness that it was a lady, a slight girl in a white dress who looked -up to nod to her father, then seeing a second figure behind him, rose -hastily with a shy grace. Harry was still more shy than she was. He was -not accustomed to the society of ladies. And he was dreadfully hungry, -having had nothing but that dry bread and coffee, a circumstance which -made him still more depressed and timid. He did not at all know why he -was introduced so suddenly into this other world. He thought he was only -going to an inner office, or perhaps--but that was a blessedness he -dared scarcely hope for--that the Consul in his kindness had meant to -give him some luncheon. But the drawing-room confused him wholly; he had -done nothing to merit such an introduction. He only half took in -accordingly the meaning of the words the Consul said, “Look here, Rita, -I have brought your champion of last night.” - -“Oh!” That purely English exclamation sounded to Harry the sweetest -syllable he had ever heard. The white figure came a step forward. By -this time he began to see through the gloom, and what he saw was a very -young face, with two great dark eyes, lifted to him full of wonder and -pleasure. Then a hand was put out, “Was it you?” she said eagerly. “Oh, -yes, I remember!” And before he was aware the hand, smaller and softer -than any such article previously known to him, touched his for a moment. -Harry dropped into the chair which the Vice-Consul pointed to him in -utter confusion of surprise. He was not even able to notice what an -extraordinary advantage to him such an introduction was. He was simply -astonished more than words could say. - -“This is Mr. Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul. “He came and told me all -about it without a notion who you were. And you see how surprised he is. -He thought, I suppose, I was taking him into a kind of genteel prison. -It must be added that, if you only arrived yesterday, you lost no time -in getting into a row.” - -“Did you only arrive yesterday?” said the delightful little voice, in -which there was a flavour of something not English, though the English -was perfect. “Oh, how glad I am that you did arrive then! What would -have become of us otherwise? for no one but an Englishman wandering -about the most unlikely places could ever have found himself just -there.” - -“And nobody but an English girl would have risked herself in such a -place,” said the father. “I hope you will take that to heart, my dear. -This girl,” he added, turning to the young man, “is by way of despising -all Italian precautions. She is an English girl, she tells everybody, -and she will not be a slave like the others: and old Benedetta is an old -fool and never goes against her. One of her pensioners was ill last -night, that was why the monkey was out at such an hour. When I am at the -Club there is nobody to put her to bed.” - -“As if I was a little child to be put to bed! It was the dearest old -woman, and she would see me. The priest had been sent for and the -sacraments; could I refuse to go--now could I? And how was I to know men -were so dreadful? But you see, papa, there are always the good angels -about.” - -“When I was young the angels were all feminine,” the Vice-Consul said, -“and we called the ladies by these pretty names, not the ladies us.” - -“Perhaps you never did so much for any girl. Oh, how frightened I was -when that man took hold of my arm! and then to hear an English voice as -if it were coming from the skies, ‘Let go that girl!’” - -“How did the fellow understand, I wonder?” the Vice-Consul said. - -“If I had not been so frightened I should have laughed. They did not -understand a bit! It might just as well have been Greek; but if it had -been Greek they would have understood,” cried Rita, putting her hands -together with grateful enthusiasm. All this time Harry had never spoken -a word; indeed, there had been no opening for him to speak. - -“You must have thought me a big idiot to say anything at all,” he said. - -“Oh! I thought you---- I won’t tell you what, or papa will say something -disagreeable. It was so grand the English voice; and then their hands -dropped as if I had been fire.” - -“I should have broken every bone in their bodies,” cried Harry, with -unnecessary fervour, “if I had known it was _you_ they touched with -their filthy fingers!” He did not know why he made this violent speech, -which was far from elegant, and quite unsuitable to the refined and -still atmosphere in which he so unexpectedly found himself. As for Rita -she blushed a little, and laughed a little, in the soft green twilight, -finding it not unnatural that he should have been doubly indignant at -the idea that it was _she_ who was in danger. She was accustomed to -believe that anything disagreeable was doubly offensive when it happened -to her, and that she was about the most important little person in the -world. But she was one of the rare people whom such a knowledge does not -spoil. It seemed to her quite simple--was not she her father’s only -child, and only pleasure in life? She had been aware of this fact ever -since she was born. - -“Hush, hush!” said the Vice-Consul; “we must have nothing more about -breaking bones: to knock down one fellow was quite enough. But I am very -much obliged to you, Oliver. I can’t make a stranger of you after this. -My little girl is all I have in the world, and whoever is good to her is -good to me. If you are going to stay in Leghorn, I hope you’ll let me be -of some use to you; but I don’t suppose that’s very likely. Meantime, -Rita, don’t you think we had better go to lunch?” - -What welcome words these were to Harry! He was excited and pleased by -the adventure altogether; his head was a little turned by the enthusiasm -of gratitude with which he was received, and the atmosphere around this -young creature, who was a kind of mystic half revelation to him. He had -not yet made out her face quite distinctly, and yet he was admitted to -all the privileges of friendship: the strange sensation intoxicated him. -But yet when her father spoke of lunch, all that went out of his head. -Consider that he had eaten nothing but about half a yard of tasteless -bread that day! and it was one o’clock. But Harry was not without -manners; though the pangs of appetite made him faint, he got up politely -and made a pretence at taking leave. Needless to say that the -Vice-Consul was above taking advantage of his position, “No, no, no; we -are going to keep you to luncheon,” he said, with a _bonhomie_ which was -irresistible. Harry thought him the most delightful person in the world, -only a little less delightful than the other unknown being who made him -feel tremulous and abashed, though so happy. The dining-room was -lighted from the shady side of the courtyard, and there was accordingly -light enough to see by. The meal was not a foreign breakfast, but an -English luncheon of a substantial kind, and it is safe to say that Harry -had never been so happy in his life as when he had taken off the first -fierce edge of appetite, and had begun to be able to enjoy the novelty -and yet the familiarity of this unexpected scene. Mr. Bonamy (which was -the name of the Vice-Consul) without laying aside the dignity as of a -benevolent prince which was so remarkable in him, showed all the -condescension of a thoroughly amiable potentate; and Rita was---- Rita -was something of which Harry had no previous conception. She was about -sixteen--no more. Her face was the face of a child, but lighted up by -two beautiful large eyes which she had got from her Italian mother. She -knew, or seemed to know, everything her father knew, and was used to be -talked to about all that happened. If it were not Joan putting in her -word occasionally in a long discussion when her interference was seldom -received but with either blame or contempt, Harry had never been -accustomed to women who took any share in the conversation going on; -and to hear this child talk bewildered him. She had a slight girlish -figure, a small face almost without colour, the faint sweet flesh tints -of which were thrown up in the most delicate distinctness by the white -of her dress. She seemed all spirit, all life, a creature made of air -and sunshine rather than flesh and blood to Harry. And about himself -there was so much flesh and blood! He listened to the conversation -rather than joined in it, feeling himself an admiring audience rather -than a partaker in their talk. One thing only he felt moved to say, and -that was about his own appetite, which he feared they would think -preposterous. “I feel more like a wolf than a man,” he said. “I hope you -won’t think I’m always like this. I never was abroad before, and I don’t -know the ways. And I had no breakfast but some of their queer bread. -This bread is delightful,” Harry said, with enthusiasm. The father and -the daughter were delighted with him, appetite and all. - -“I am so glad you never were abroad before,” said Rita; “now one sees -exactly what England is like. Oh, yes, papa, you need not laugh. I see -the English green, and the trees waving, and the winds blowing, all in -Mr. Oliver’s face. And there is a little sound of the sea, and a shadow -of hills--not big mountains, but nice, kind hills with sheep-bells -tinkling----” - -“We have not many sheep-bells, Miss Bonamy, in my country,” said Harry; -“the hills are more grey than green, and there is a great deal of fog in -the winter, and east wind, and rain----” - -“Oh, don’t tell me about the bad things, tell me about what is -pleasant,” said Rita. “The east wind is not so bad as the scirocco, and -the rain is delightful. I know all about that. As for the fog, the -painters say it is more picturesque than anything. They say there is -always a soft delicious sort of haze, and you never see things sharp cut -out against the sky as they look here.” - -“Have you never been in England?” Harry said, with a little surprise; -and then he saw that a shade, a sort of cloud, come over the lively -table, and the two animated faces. Rita shook her head, and then began -to talk quickly to him about the neighbourhood, and all he would have to -see. Harry had protested to his humble friends that he wanted to see -nothing but the shipping, but he did not repeat this sentiment here. He -learned in a moment that to be fond of pictures was a necessity, and -that there were certain things which every Englishman in Italy had come -expressly to worship. Rita’s opinion “of course” convinced him in a -moment. He never made the slightest stand against it. Henceforward he -knew what was expected of him. When she went out of the room waving her -fingers to him in sign of goodbye, Harry suddenly became quite grave, -and felt all at once as if the light had gone out of the sky. And there -was more than sentiment in this feeling; for now he found himself face -to face with the Vice-Consul, and it was very evident that, so much -having passed between them, something more would now have to be said. -Mr. Bonamy offered the young man a cigar, and, lighting his own, leant -back in his chair, and evidently awaited some further disclosures of his -mind and purpose. - -“You are thinking of staying in Leghorn,” he said. - -“I am thinking,” said Harry, feeling his colour rise, “of trying to get -employment, if I can; a situation of some kind.” - -“Employment!” said the Vice-Consul. It was impossible to deny that he -was disappointed. His voice had an accent which there was no mistaking. -Harry had not much refinement or education, but he had an air which -would have been perfectly consistent with the rank of a young squire, an -English country gentleman of simple mind, and no great amount of -culture, travelling for his pleasure, and perhaps with some vague idea -of improvement. Mr. Bonamy, who had received him so cordially, and who -had been pleased to be under an obligation to a young fellow of -attractive appearance and pleasant manners, was more cast down by this -intimation than might have been thought possible. Not a young squire: -nobody in particular: a penniless youth seeking employment. Such -visitors were not rare, but they seldom penetrated into the -carefully-guarded interior of the Vice-Consul’s house. - -Harry felt very much abashed. He was sensible of the downfall. How he -longed to produce the glories of the Joscelyns, and convince his hearer -that, if he was humble now, his family had once sat with princes! -Perhaps Mr. Bonamy might not have been so impressed by these ancestors -as Harry thought; but as it was they looked at each other blankly, -mutually feeling that a great fall had taken place. Harry smiled in -that rigid way which is popularly called smiling at the wrong side of -the face. - -“Yes,” he said, “employment. I don’t know that I am very good for -anything: but I have some little acquaintance with--business.” - -This was worse and worse. Had he been possessed of a knowledge of law -business, or military drill, or anything likely to be of no real use to -him, the situation might have improved. But business! book-keeping, and -that sort of thing! no doubt he was a mere clerk after all. - -“You have recommendations, I suppose, from your last employers,” Mr. -Bonamy said, coldly. “I shall be glad if I can be of any use, but----” - -“To tell the truth,” said Harry--he was seized with an outburst of -frankness, feeling a kind of desperation seize him at sight of this cold -withdrawal of the sudden friendship which had made him so happy for the -moment--“to tell the truth I have no recommendations. If anyone will be -kind to me they must take me at my own word. All I have got to say for -myself is that I have quarrelled with my family. I cannot enter into the -question now. I have done it, and that is all I can say; and here I am, -and I must get employment. I am not going to push myself into your -acquaintance, Sir. It was an accident, nothing more than an accident; -and probably you thought me a person of more importance----” - -“Importance or not has nothing to do with it,” said the Vice-Consul; and -again his countenance softened. A young man who has quarrelled with his -family is no doubt a person to be lectured and reproved, and brought -back to a sense of duty, but all the same he is quite different from a -commonplace clerk seeking a situation. Harry did not intend to throw any -halo of distinction over his own humble person, but he did it unawares. -Mr. Bonamy’s countenance gradually cleared. “My dear young fellow,” he -said, “I daresay you are impulsive and hot-headed, like so many other -young men. As being under obligations to you, I may allow myself to give -you good advice. No advantage ever springs from family quarrels. My -advice to you is, make it up.” - -“Not for anything in the world,” said Harry, hotly. “I have been -treated--I can’t say how I have been treated. I will neither make it up, -nor will I go near them, or have any communication with them, till I am -altogether independent of them, and have worked out a position for -myself!” - -“You must not be so violent,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, let me -act the part of a real friend. Let me write.” - -“Never!” said Harry, getting up to his feet. “I am very sorry, Sir, to -have troubled you with my affairs.” - -“That is nonsense,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Sit down, sit down, and let us -talk it over. You have been hot-headed, I don’t doubt. What is it now? -tell me. Some foolish falling in love. You must want to marry somebody -they don’t approve.” - -Harry smiled in spite of himself. “I am no more in love than you are, -Sir,” he said. - -“That might be a dangerous affirmation,” said the Vice-Consul, shaking -his head, with a smile which was somewhat melancholy; “but I understand -what you mean. Then was it money? You have been foolish and got into -debt?” - -“It was a little about money; but not because I had got into debt--and -that was the least of it,” Harry said. “You must pardon me, Sir; but -indeed I cannot tell you: it is a complicated business; and I can’t -depart from what I have said. I will never go home, never make it up -till I have made my own fortune. But if you will believe me,” he said -earnestly, with a flush of hot colour, “the fault was not mine. I have -nothing to conceal on my side.” - -“Then why conceal it?” said the Vice-Consul. “I cannot act for you -unless I have full information; but if you will trust me with your -story----” - -“I would trust you sooner than anyone I know; but I have promised that I -will never say a word on the subject,” said Harry, with all the -obstinacy of all the Joscelyns in his face, “until--I am independent, as -I have said.” He rose up a second time, all flushed and excited. “I am -going to try my luck at Leghorn,” he said. “I am much obliged to you, -Sir, for your kindness. I have felt myself again since I have been here; -but now I will not trouble you any more.” He held out his hand. He was a -handsome young fellow, tall and strong, with the sunburnt countenance -and well-developed limbs, and curling, fair locks, which are everywhere -identified with a young Englishman. He was not at all like a mere clerk -in an office; he was like a son of the fields and woods, one of those -whose training has been of the kind most prized and appreciated by all -Englishmen--an open-air youth; a rider, rower, swimmer, -cricketer--brought up in that way which involves leisure and space, and -all the appliances of country-life. Mr. Bonamy saw all this in Harry’s -vigorous form and movements. He felt sure that he could not be a nobody. -And after all, except that of being a nobody, there is in youth no -unpardonable sin. - -“Don’t be in such a hurry. Sit down again, the office does not open for -another half-hour: and let me hear what there is to be done for you,” he -said. - -This was a question more embarrassing than the Vice-Consul supposed, for -after all there did not seem much that Harry could do. He confessed that -he had almost forgotten what he knew at school, and he had never learned -any modern languages, and could speak no tongue but his own. He had a -little experience in business, he said; but this was the only knowledge -he could lay claim to. The Vice-Counsel did not know what to make of -him; but as he had started with the distinct hypothesis that Harry was a -squire’s son, it was not very difficult to fit in the facts to his -foregone conclusion. Many a young gentleman forgot all his school -learning by the time he was twenty. The difficult thing was that -knowledge of business which at first Harry had been strongly disposed to -put forward as the only faculty which he knew himself to be possessed -of. How had he acquired that? Mr. Bonamy ended by deciding that he must -have quarrelled with his family some time before, and that his -acquaintance with business had been the fruit of some attempt made in -England to maintain himself before he came here. Thus, without any -intention on Harry’s part, he managed to deceive his first influential -friend. He neither meant to do it, nor was he aware he had done it; but -still this was how things fell out. The conclusion of the interview was -that Mr. Bonamy engaged Harry to come back to him next day, when he -would have thought the whole matter over, and know what to say. They -parted with great friendship and cordiality, Mr. Bonamy having entirely -come round again to his own theory in respect to the young man who had -been so serviceable to his daughter. Everything seemed to prove this, -Harry’s very ignorance among the rest. “In these days every poor lad is -more or less educated; a gentleman’s son, who has something else to look -to than competitive examination, he is the only one that escapes that -sort of thing,” the Vice-Consul wisely said. Harry, on his part, went -off to his hotel with greatly exhilarated feelings. He had done nothing, -he said to himself, but make friends since ever he came to Leghorn. To -be sure in the light of the Vice-Consul’s friendship he felt that Paolo -was (as he had always felt) somewhat beneath his pretensions. But still -the poor fellow had been very kind. As he came out by the private door -of the Consul’s house, he saw Paolo at a little distance waiting till -the public door of the Consulate should be open. He saw Harry and rushed -at him, beckoning violently. - -“Komm ’ere, komm ’ere; this is the place,” he said. “Komm along, I will -introduce you, I will respond for you; now is the time to find the -Vice-Consul amiable. He is always amiable when he has well breakfasted.” -He seized Harry by the arm, and tried to drag him back to the Consulate -with an anxious desire to serve his friend which merited a better -return. Harry shook himself free of the little man with good-natured -impatience. - -“I’ve just come from the Vice-Consul,” he said with dignity, “we’re the -best of friends. I’ve been able to be of use to him, and he is going to -be of use to me. Many thanks to you, Paolo, all the same; but I’ve been -lunching there, and--and I’ve done my business. To-morrow I am to go -again,” Harry said, unconsciously holding his head high. Paolo gazed at -him with eyes and mouth that were like round O’s of wonder. He was much -crestfallen in his honest endeavours to be of service. But he soon -recovered his spirits. - -“Bravo!” he said three times over, each time more satisfied than the -other. Then he rose to a “Bravissimo,” with a smile that lighted up his -olive face. “It would have made me pleasure to be of use to you, Ser -Isaack mio. I would have responded, I would have taken it all upon -me--what you call caution. But you are a true English, like the -Vice-Consul himself, and it is just that you should understand each -other. I am not disappointed--I am happy, very much happy that you have -not any need of me,” little Paolo said, smiling, but with tears in his -eyes. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -PAOLO. - - -Paolo came back from his labours in the evening, very curious to know -all about Harry’s interview with the Consul, and the origin and the -result of the acquaintance between them. But Harry was prudent. He was -prudent without any motive, from personal pride, rather than from any -consideration for the credit of Miss Bonamy, which he did not think to -be in the least involved. The women with whom Harry was acquainted were -not of a kind who would have been afraid to go anywhere in the evening, -and it did not occur to him that the reputation, even of a girl, in -Italy would be jeopardized by such an innocent benevolence as that of -going to visit a sick neighbour at night. Therefore it was simply pride -and English reserve, not any notion of prudence on Rita’s account, that -kept him silent on the subject. Paolo had a very different conception of -the affair. He was very anxious to find out what had been the immediate -effect upon Harry’s mind of the visit to the Consul’s house. - -“There is a--young ladi there,” he said, watching Harry’s face. “You see -perhaps, yes? a young ladi, the daughter of the Signor.” - -“Oh, yes, I saw Miss Bonamy,” Harry said. - -“And you nevare--see her before?” This Paolo asked with a gleam of -mischief in his dark eyes, and the air of a man who knew a great deal -more than he said. - -“Oh yes, I have met her before,” said Harry lightly. “They were quite -old friends. I did not in the least expect to meet people so like old -friends here.” - -Paolo was bewildered by this speech, and did not know what to think. - -“Ah,” he said in a tone of disappointment. “You know them in your -country? what you call at ’ome? But,” he added with a little triumph, -“there you could not meet Signorina Rita, because she is never to go to -England; her mother die in England, her mother was the daughter of an -English and Italian, like me for example; but she die in England when -she go, all young, when the Signorina was a bébé. The Signor Vice-Consul -was mad--Si! mad, there is no other word. It was a long time that it was -thought he die too--but no, he live, he go on living; but the Signorina -Rita never go to England, that is finished, that is fixed, nothing will -change it. It could not be that you meet her there.” - -“Do you know Miss Bonamy very well,” said Harry with a little offence, -“that you call her by her Christian name?” - -“I say Signorina Rita, it is our custom. If she were an old, I should -say Sora Rita; and the Vice-Consul he is Ser Giovanni, that is our -custom. Ser Isaack you, Ser Paolo me--but not for you, amico. When you -say Paul-o, that pleases me,” and Paolo laughed, showing his teeth, -which were very white and even. He added, after a moment, with a sudden -moistening of his brilliant eyes, “But what displeases me, after -becoming amici, as we are, is not to be able to serve you. I picture to -myself that I will do something; not moche, but yet something. I will -stand up and say, ‘I take him upon myself. He is without papers, but I -take him upon myself--me.’ Now I am without use. It is no matter to you -to have Paolo Thomp-sone for your friend. The Vice-Consul is moche -bettare--he is grand personage; he has power, not only the heart, like -me.” - -“But, Paul-o,” said Harry, anxious to comfort him, and half touched, -half amused by his distress, “but for you I should never have gone near -the Vice-Consul: you put it into my head. But for you,” he added, with a -laugh, putting his hand lightly on Paolo’s shoulder, “I think I should -have turned tail altogether, and wandered off I don’t know where.” - -Paolo’s face shone with delight. He would have rushed into Harry’s arms -had that been practicable, and thrown himself upon his breast. But -Harry, laughing, kept his friend at arm’s length. To have kissed, or to -have suffered himself to be kissed by, any man, seemed to him the height -of ridicule. Paolo, baffled in this impulse, sat down and looked at him -with radiant eyes. “Now I know that we are amici,” he said. “Aspetto! -There is still a way I can serve you. I well teach you to speak the -Italian. You shall know it so well that they shall say, Ecco un -Italiano. Me, I have been to school in Sienna. I know the real -Toscano--the best Italian. We shall begin this moment. That pleases to -you, Ser Isaack?” asked Paolo, tenderly, looking with humble and -deprecating eagerness into his face. - -“You must learn to speak English better,” Harry said, with some -condescension. “I told you before you must not not say an English, but -an Englishman, and to say an old is nonsense--it should be an old woman, -or an old man, whichever it may be.” - -“Yes, yes,” cried Paolo, “that is alright, that is understood. You -correct me when I say what is not just, and I teach you.” - -“Come out now for a walk,” Harry said. - -Paolo jumped up alert and delighted. It is true that it glanced across -the mind of the young Englishman that perhaps it was beneath the dignity -of a man who was a friend of the Vice-Consul’s, and thus, as it were, a -member of the best society, to walk about with Paolo hanging on to his -arm. But, though Harry was full of youthful conceits and the prejudices -of an ignorant Englishman, he yet had a heart in his capacious bosom, -and Paolo’s devotion had been so great as to touch that heart. He said -to himself, with a little effusion, that he never would turn his back -upon a little fellow who had been so anxious to help him. It might be -that it was presumption on the part of the little fellow to think -himself capable of serving Harry, but still it was well meant, and his -undisguised admiration showed a most just and well-judging spirit. -Nothing, he said to himself, would induce him to turn his back upon -Paolo, his first friend. Antonio had given his whole attention to the -two during the course of dinner. He had loitered behind them when he was -not actively pressing upon them all the choicest morsels, to the despair -of various less interesting guests who could not catch his eye, and who -shouted and stamped in vain. He kept shifting from one foot to another -in the restlessness of pure pleasure as he caught now and then a word of -the conversation between them, and rubbed his hands with delight in the -consciousness of being able to understand it. Now and then he would -punch a fat Italian, with whom he was familiar, in the shoulder, and -call his attention. “Ecco il giovane Inglese,” he would say, though -Harry was doing nothing more important than eating his dinner. Antonio -had got his five francs for a very short day, for naturally the time -passed in the Consul’s had given him no trouble except that of waiting, -and what was still more to the purpose than the five francs was the -importance of having such a witness to his power of English-speaking as -this new guest, who could arrange nothing for himself without his -(Antonio’s) help. He disregarded even the call of the chief butler, so -absorbed was he in his favourite stranger. - -“Do you wish the young Inglese to starve,” he asked, indignantly, in his -native language, “when you know the Inglesi are the best customers the -padrone has, and always send millions more? Do you propose to yourself -that he should have nothing to eat, this young one that is no doubt made -of gold; and how can he have anything to eat if I am not there to serve -him?” - -Thus he kept behind Harry’s chair with a countenance full of delighted -interest. Now and then he would put in a word. “Ze signori will do much -better to go to ze opera to-night,” he said. “Zey will hear La Catalina, -who is ze first in Italy. It is ze ‘Barbiere,’ Ser Paolo, which gives -itself to-night.” - -Paolo looked up appealingly into his friend’s face, but Harry brushed -the suggestion away with a true British argument. “Oh, for heaven’s -sake,” he cried, “don’t let us go and box ourselves up in a hot theatre -on such a night.” - -Paolo sighed, but obeyed. He repeated the sentiment in a superior tone -to Antonio, who was anxiously serving them with Cigare Scelte, arranged -in different kinds upon a wooden tray. “A hot theatre, Antonio mio! one -does not go there in a so warm evening. That goes well with the winter, -when it is cold; but in summer, we young have need of moche air and the -great world to keep us comfort-able. When you know more of real English -you will learn what they love.” - -Antonio accepted this decision of his superiors with much respect, and -laid it up in his memory, to be produced on his own account when it -might accord with his pretensions as an Anglomane and person of high -sentiment to produce it. But in the meantime he could not but launch a -little criticism to the others who overheard this dignified rebuke. -“That little Paolino,” he said, as they went out, “to give himself the -air of a rich Inglese! He is neither one thing nor another. He is no -more than an abozzo--a sketch of an Inglese,” Antonio cried. He had been -in an artist’s studio in his day. “Me, I understand them, al fondo,” he -added, beating his breast. - -Little Paolo had no notion that he was being called an abozzo. He -sallied forth, lighting his cigar, thrusting his arm through Harry’s -with the greatest delight and pride. - -Next day, at the hour appointed, Harry presented himself at the -Vice-Consul’s office, and was received with the same cordiality. Mr. -Bonamy had “made inquiries,” but, as nobody in Leghorn knew anything -about Harry, there was not much information to be procured. Neither did -the captain of the steamer in which he had arrived know anything about -him except that he was a passenger in the second cabin; although he -looked quite superior to the second cabin. “I set him down as somebody’s -son in disgrace with his family,” the captain said. This chimed in -sufficiently well with Mr. Bonamy’s observations. He met Harry after the -first consultation with a grave face. “You know I know nothing about -you, Mr. Oliver,” he said, “except--and that is not much--what you have -chosen to tell me.” - -“That is quite true, Sir,” said Harry, growing serious too, and feeling -his heart sink, “and I have no right to expect you to take my word even -for that.” - -“Therefore,” said the Vice-Consul, “(for you should never interrupt a -man in the middle of a sentence), I have the more claim upon you to -treat me in an honourable way. If you had come with all your papers, as -they say in this country, I should not have had the same right to put -you on parole, as it were. If you know no reason why I shouldn’t take -you into my office, and trust you with the Queen’s affairs, I mean to do -so. But if there is anything that would make you a discredit to Her -Majesty’s Service----” - -“There is nothing, Sir,” said Harry, standing up. His face flushed, his -nostril dilated, an impulse of almost fierce self-justification came -upon him; but fortunately for him he was not used to defending himself, -and he could not say another word. - -“Then that is enough,” said the Vice-Consul. “I take you on your own -parole.” - -They were both silent for a minute or two after. It was not like a -common engagement. Harry’s heart was in his throat. What with surprise -at this extraordinary good fortune, and the emotion called forth by a -confidence in him which he could not help feeling to be as -extraordinary, he was quite beyond his own control. If he had said -anything he would have “made a fool of himself,” so he said nothing, but -sat still, almost disposed, like Paolo, to be tearful, which was the -most dreadful catastrophe he could think of. The good Vice-Consul was a -little affected too. - -“But I don’t know a word of the language,” at last Harry said. - -“We have more to do with Englishmen than Italians,” said Mr. Bonamy. -“Perhaps the fellow whom you knocked down ‘quietly,’ as you told me, may -come and make his complaint to you. Your knocking a man down quietly was -the thing that tickled me. I wonder what was his opinion of it. You must -learn the language of course, and some other things quite as important. -You must find out all about the harbour by-laws and dues, and all that -affects the shipping. These are things we have a great deal to do with. -You must master them, that is the most important thing; and when you -have been here for a little while you will find out other points. Do you -know anyone from whom you can get lessons? But I suppose, as a matter of -fact, you don’t know anyone here.” - -Here Harry, finding his power of speech, told him of Paolo, with that -half laugh of commentary which implies a certain slight of the friend to -whom he had so much reason to be grateful. He felt that it was mean, but -he could not help it. How could he help implying a laugh at the droll -little person who held by him so faithfully, yet was so entirely out of -Harry’s way? However, the Vice-Consul took Paolo quite seriously. He -nodded his head with approval. “Nobody better--nobody better,” he said. -“I see you laugh at him; but he is as sound as a bell, that little -fellow, and always rings true. That he is not quite your equal,” Mr. -Bonamy added, “does not matter a bit in the circumstances. I am glad -that you have chanced so fortunately. To get hold by accident of such a -genuine person as Paolo is quite a piece of luck. I rather think you -must be a lucky person,” he added, with a laugh. - -“Since I came to Leghorn,” said Harry, fervently, “nothing could be more -true than that.” - -“Yes, I think you must be lucky,” said the Vice-Consul, “to hit upon a -perfectly honest person as your first acquaintance, then making haste to -get yourself into a row to have so good an excuse for it as my Rita, and -then----” - -“And then,” said Harry, “to meet with such astonishing, such -unlooked-for kindness, to fall on my feet in such a wonderful way.” - -“Well, perhaps,” said Mr. Bonamy, not displeased, “we may say that was -luck too; and one thing, Oliver,” he added quickly, “it will be so much -the better for you that employment in Her Majesty’s Service is a -disgrace to nobody; mind what I say. Of course, in the nature of events, -you and your family will not be at daggers drawn for ever; and when you -condescend to go back, or they find you out, and come to look for -you----” - -“Neither, neither will happen,” cried Harry, shaking his head. - -“We shall see; but if that day comes, there is nothing for them to find -fault with. A Consulate is not like a merchant’s office; anybody may -serve Her Majesty. None of us, I hope, are too good for that.” - -“I assure you, Sir----” Harry cried, hastily. - -“No, no, you need not assure me. I don’t want to know anything; unless, -indeed, your heart should be opened to tell me _everything_, which I -should really be glad of. Well,” he said, “come to-morrow morning and -begin. Your friend, Paolo, will tell you about the hours: and I hope, -Oliver, we shall always remain the best of friends,” the Vice-Consul -added, rising and holding out his hand. “I hope nothing will happen to -make me entertain a less opinion of you than I do now; that’s -understood. You shall have a card for Rita’s evening at-home, and I hope -you’ll come and see us occasionally in a friendly way. Let us say next -Sunday, perhaps? Sunday’s a dreary day for a young man by himself. Come -after church, and stay for the after noon; for the present, goodbye.” - -Harry took his hat and made his best bow. He was really quite tremulous -with excitement, surprise, and pleasure. To be so speedily and so easily -established was more good fortune than he could realize. When he was at -the door Mr. Bonamy called him back. - -“Oliver!” he cried, “one moment; I would not knock any more men down if -I were you; however quietly it is done, it is a little risky, and Her -Majesty’s Service, you know----” - -“You needn’t fear, Sir; that’s what Paul-o has been preaching to me all -the time,” Harry said. - -Upon which the Vice-Consul laughed benignly. - -“Paul-o, as you call him, is as good an adviser as you could have,” he -said. - -“What should I call him but Paul-o?” Harry said to himself; and he went -off with his head in the air. Lucky! indeed he had been lucky; only the -third day since his arrival and he had a situation and a sort of a home -and friends; to make up to him for all the evil that had happened to him -before, providence was taking special care of him now. Somehow this made -Harry think of his mother, of whom, hitherto, his thoughts had been -scarcely more kind than towards the others concerned; a little moisture -crept unawares to his eyes. “She’ll have been praying,” he said to -himself; and suddenly he seemed to see her, as he had seen her so often, -wringing her thin worn hands, her lips trembling with words that were -inaudible. He thought--it would be hard to trace the exact connection of -ideas, but there was one--that he would go in to the first church in -which there seemed to be service going on, on his way back to the inn. -It would not have occurred to him to go into a church where there was no -service, but when he heard the tinkle of a bell, and saw one or two -people creeping up and down the broad stone steps, he went in, though -with a little opposition in his mind, as well as a certain craving for -sympathy and utterance. But when he went in, Harry saw no signs of -public worship. The tinkle of the bell was coming from an altar in a -side chapel, where a great many candles were burning. In the body of the -church some people were seated quietly, others kneeling on the low -rush-bottomed chairs. He stood and gazed for a little with mingled -feelings, with a great opposition in his mind to the Papist ritual and -ceremonies (of which he saw nothing, and which, to tell the truth, he -had never seen, and knew nothing whatever about); and disapproval of the -people who were in the church for, as he thought, no purpose--mingled -with a curious sense of the grateful calm and quietness and seclusion of -the place, the serene coolness and breadth of its lofty roofs and silent -space. This stole upon him, he could not tell how. He would not have -knelt down, as the few people about were doing, to save his life: it -would have seemed to him like the famous bowing down in the house of -Rimmon, for the North was very Protestant in those days, and sympathy -with Rome was very rare. He would not even say a distinct prayer in his -heart, which would have seemed like yielding to temptation. But, as he -stood, there rose in him an unwilling devotion, and the thanks that had -been in his mind were perhaps not the less given that they were -arbitrarily refused utterance. For Harry’s prejudices were a part of his -training, not anything that originated in himself. When he went away the -moisture came again into the corners of his eyes. His mother was as -Protestant, more Protestant, than himself. She would have thought it -wrong to go into “a Catholic chapel.” She would scarcely have been able -to believe in the existence of a country not given over to all evil, in -which a Popish place of worship was not a Catholic chapel, but an -established church. Oh, the poor people! what benighted darkness they -must be in! she would have said, in her ignorance. But somehow, Harry -could not have told how, he felt as if he had approached his mother in -that foreign place. The silent church, with the silent people in it -praying, made him think of her as he had seen her, with her lips moving -and her hands clasped together. Often again he stole in for a moment to -renew that sentiment, which was so soft and pathetic. He held out -against his mother all the time obstinately, though he knew he was -condemning her to great suffering--and he entirely disapproved of the -church; but for all that the two had some subtle resemblance, a union -of two things he was hostile to, which went to his heart. - -Paolo came to dinner in great triumph. He had placed a flower in his -button-hole and put on a brilliant new tie in honour of the great event, -and fairly threw himself upon his amico and kissed him with enthusiasm -before Harry could get out of this extremely embarrassing position. -Never young girl blushed more uncomfortably than the young man did as he -drew himself out of his enthusiastic friend’s embrace. - -“What have I done to you that you make no response?” Paolo said, almost -weeping over this repulse. - -“Hold your tongue, for goodness’ sake! Men don’t kiss each other in -England. Whatever you do, don’t be ridiculous,” Harry cried. - -Poor little Paolo was wounded to the heart. - -“I am an English myself,” he said. “Yes, yes, an English_man_, if you -will; I have not the courage to remember. I am a true English-man; but -it is cruel all the same. Should I then take no notice? when it is the -wish most dear of my heart that will be fulfilled? Always I have said to -myself--if the Santissima Virgin would send a real English-man, not one -that is what you call ’alf-and-’alf, like me. And when it is done, and -my amico whom I have chosen turns out to be he whom I have so much -desired, am not I to show a little that I am glad? I am ’appy that I am -an Italian,” said Paolo, with indignation, “if it is so.” - -And there was a little suspension of intercourse between them. But this -did not last; Paolo was too good-humoured and too tender-hearted to -stand out; he begged his friend’s pardon in less than five minutes. -Harry, whose mind moved more slowly, had not had time to realize that he -had been unkind when this reversal of the position took place. Paolo did -all but weep in his penitence. - -“I am good-for-nothing,” he said, “I am without sentiment, I have no -delicacy nor education. Who can say why you were so magnanimous as to -choose me, me! for your amico? and when you show the true dignity of an -English, me I am so without good-breeding, so common, so devoid of -sentiment, that I become angry! but if you will only forgive me, forgive -me this once----!” - -“It is I who am a brute,” said Harry, penitent in his turn. But Paolo -protested with tears in his eyes, and would have thrown himself at his -friend’s feet, or on his neck again, in the excitement of the -reconciliation. And though he was usually very thrifty, calculating -every centissimo, he ordered a bottle of _champagne frappé_ to celebrate -the day. Nothing would prevail upon him to countermand this order. - -“It is a festa,” cried the little man, “and it is a reparation: and we -will drink to our eternal friendship.” Paolo did not know that he was -guilty of plagiarism; he was heroically in earnest, and drank his wine, -which Antonio brought with great pride and many grins, triumphantly in -its pail, setting it on the table before them, and watching its -consumption with the most amiable interest. “And here is for a -bicchierino,” Paolo said, bestowing, a small coin upon Antonio with much -grandeur, “drink thou also the health of Ser Isaack, who is my amico,” -and he held out his foaming glass to touch that of his friend. - -Paolo’s head was turned altogether by these unusual potations; and -Harry’s first office was to see his friend safe home and deliver him -from all the dangers of the streets, on this too triumphant night. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -THE OFFICE. - - -Harry entered upon his work next day, and was in a few hours so entirely -bewildered by the novel character of the questions addressed to him, and -the information he was supposed to possess, that he went to the -Vice-Consul in the evening in dismay. “I don’t know a thing,” he said; -“I never knew before what an ignorant beast I was. It would only be -taking advantage of you if I were to stay.” - -This hasty alarm and anxious honesty of purpose made Mr. Bonamy more and -more certain that he had judged rightly. “Don’t give in in such a -hurry,” he said, “you can’t be expected to know things of that sort -without learning. They are not part of a gentleman’s education. You -must get your friend Paolo to take you in hand. He is a perfect mine of -information. I have often to refer to him myself. Though he is not in a -very high position, he knows more about these special matters than all -the rest of us put together.” - -And thus balm was diffused over Harry’s sore spirit. But he could not -help asking himself why the inequalities and injustices of this world -should be so marked in respect to Paolo. Why should he not be in a very -high position so far as the Vice-Consul’s office was concerned? He, -Harry, who was an ignoramus and knew nothing, was to have higher pay and -far more consideration than the other, who was a mine of knowledge. It -was true that Harry’s personal sense of superiority to Paolo was noways -weakened--but yet he felt the injustice. He had not been used to enter -into such questions, yet he could not but see that to bolster up the -ignorance of a well-looking Englishman, by the knowledge of a little -oddity of an Italian was somewhat hard so far as the Italian was -concerned. It was, accordingly, with a deprecating tone that he spoke to -Paolo at dinner. It even moved him to a little insincerity. What he had -said to the Vice-Consul in all good faith, and much dismay, he repeated -to Paolo, not meaning it at all. “I don’t know a thing,” he said, “not -one question could I answer. I never knew I was so ignorant. It is very -nice to be settled and have Mr. Bonamy for my chief, and you, Paolo, to -help me through: but a fellow must be honest--and when the beggars come -and ask me things, I can’t go on pretending to know.” - -“You shall not pretend to know, Isaack mio,” cried Paolo, with a beaming -countenance. “Now is just come the moment which I was looking for, which -show that it is good to have a friend. How much does it matter whether -it is you that have it or I that have it? Listen then to me. You think -Paolo Thomp-sone a little nobody, and it is true; but listen--listen to -me. It is not to talk big or to brag that is necessary. _I_ know.” - -“I am sure of that, Paolo,” said Harry, languidly, and with the look of -dejection which was half acting, though he did not intend it. “The -Vice-Consul said so. He told me you were a mine of knowledge. But why -should I pick your brains? Why should I mount up upon you and stand upon -your shoulders, and get all the credit of it? That is not just any more -than the other. I oughtn’t to take everything from you.” - -Paolo could scarcely keep still upon his chair in his delight and -satisfaction. His face glowed and shone with happiness. “Are not you my -friend?” he cried; “all that which is to Paolo is to you, Ser Isaack. It -is my pride. We will begin to-night. It is better than to go out to the -Café to sit and sip Rosolio--to be idle like the others--moche bettare. -You shall come to my room, or I will go to yours--and then the books, -and to write the exercises, and to stoody. Yes, yes--I know. I have been -here all my life--I know moche, almost everything. Then we commence -to-night.” - -“But, Paolo, how am I to accept all that from you? A week ago you did -not know me, and now you are going to sacrifice all your spare time and -your pleasure to me; that is not just, as you say. You must let me at -least,” said Harry, faltering, and, with a glimmering insight which was -quite new to him, watching his friend’s countenance, “you must let me at -least--consider you as--my master, you know; and we must settle--now -don’t be angry--a price.” - -Paolo did not say a word; he turned his face away from his friend and -pretended to go on eating his dinner. There was no need for words to -show how deeply wounded he was. He turned his shoulder to Harry, and -called the smiling Antonio to the other side. - -“Take it away! take it away!” he said in English, “it choke me!” and he -pushed his plate from him. - -“Oh! Signor Paolo! Pertanto é buonissimo; don’t cry, Ser Paolo,” cried -the anxious waiter. “These Inglesi, they are brutes; they have no -sentiment; they give pain without knowing it. Pertanto, you must not -weep.” - -“That imports me nothing,” said Paolo, feebly. “It is again an illusion, -my good Antonio; but I cannot weep much, for it is too deep.” - -“What are you two talking about? when you know I don’t understand your -confounded Italian!” cried Harry, at his wit’s end. “What’s the matter? -what have I done now? you will drive a poor beggar out of his senses! -Good Lord! you’re not a woman, that you should cry for what a fellow -says. I don’t know what you mean by your sentiment and all that; I want -to be honest, and not to take advantage of a good hearted duffer because -he is my friend.” - -Paolo turned round with the tears still in his eyes. - -“You call me duffere,” he said quickly; “beggare I understand, but -duffere I never heard.” - -“It means,” said Harry, drawing on his imagination, “the best-hearted, -silly kind fellow in the world, always going out of his way to help -somebody, holding out his hand to a suspicious beast the moment he lands -in a strange place, never giving him up though he behaves like a brute, -giving everything like an idiot, but flaring up if you want to give him -anything in return.” - -“Not that, not that,” said Paolo, laying his hand upon his friend’s arm. -“I give you my lofe, and I wait for your lofe in return. If there is a -thing you want I take it upon myself. Siamo amici! is there any more to -say? I know nothing; all is in that. If it is true that I am your amico, -then you are a beggare, you are a beast, you are all bad,” said Paolo, -with flashing eyes, “to be so base as to offer to pay me--money. Ah! -che! che! there is nothing too bad, nothing too dreadful to say. Inglese -brutale! false amico----!” Here he stopped all at once, and gazed -piteously into Harry’s face. “Forgive me, forgive me, my friend!” he -cried. - -This all happened at dinner, at the _table-d’hôte_, which fortunately -was not very full that day. There was nobody sitting opposite, which was -a great relief to Harry’s mind; but he could see from the end of the -table the cynical Englishman, who had never taken any notice of him, -giving an amused glance now and then at the group of friends--Paolo -shedding tears into his plate, Antonio, with a face full of sympathy, -tenderly removing it, essaying to console the sufferer. This was a -greater trial to Harry’s temper than even the sentiment of Paolo. He -shot an answering glance of defiance at his countryman, who had never so -much as given the help of a kind word to the stranger. - -“Let’s say no more about it, Paolo,” he said, “you and I are quite -different, you know. I daresay I am a brutal Englishman, but I can’t -help it. That’s our nature. We don’t think so much of a little thing as -you do, and we abhor making a fuss. Perhaps you don’t know what that -means?” - -“I will nevare make a fuss more. I will learn to be a duffere, and do as -you do,” said Paolo, in all the tenderness of reconciliation. - -Harry looked at him something as Joan looked at his mother. He had too -good a heart to despise his little friend, and he did not understand -him; but this sentiment was extremely inconvenient and very -troublesome--on that point there could be no doubt. - -However, later in the evening, Paolo, who had inherited all the Italian -thrift, gave his friend some very sensible advice. Instead of going to -the Café, they went to Paolo’s _appartamento_, which was on the highest -floor of a high house in one of the narrow streets. Though he called it -an _appartamento_ it was a single room, with an odd little closet in the -shape of a kitchen, and offices attached to it. The room itself was -somewhat low in the roof, being so high up, but had three or four -windows, and a little balcony suspended over the street, into which it -made Harry dizzy to look down as into an Alpine ravine. The floor was of -tiles, the walls white, with a pattern in distemper, very graceful and -flowing, round the top and bottom. The bed was a very tiny and bare -article, put away in a corner. In another corner stood a table. A few -chairs, and an old, very straight-backed settee, with two arms, in old -gilding and brocade, stood against the wall. There was a tall, brass -_lucerna_, the lamp common throughout Italy, with its little bundle of -snuffers and extinguisher and scissors to trim the wick, hanging from it -by a chain, and a few books on a shelf. Nothing could be more bare. -There was a small rug by the bedside, but no other covering for the bare -area of tiles which was the chief feature in the room. Paolo had a -little picture of the Madonna, a bad copy of that which is called the -Madonna del Granduca, and a basin for holy water over his bed, which was -covered with a red and blue cotton coverlet. Everything about showed the -same bareness and absence both of comfort and ornament. But Paolo -regarded his _appartamento_ with eyes full of pleasure. He saw nothing -wanting in it. It housed him sufficiently of nights, and was cool and -pleasant in the summer mornings, when he rose, as most Italians do, in -the early daylight, to get through all the private work he might happen -to have. He looked round upon it with a gentle complaisance. Some old -prints, and one or two copies of famous pictures, hung on the walls. In -the best light was an old painting of a gloomy and uncertain aspect, -which Paolo believed to be a Margheritone. It might have been anything. -He was very proud of it. “Ecco!” he said, when they went in, “my old -master. He is a little dark, but when you study him you will find much -in him. He is of the _trecento_--very early--very early. The painter -have seen the blessed father, San Francesco; that indicates how old it -must be.” - -Harry did not make any reply to this. For his part he liked things -better for being new. The dark old picture had no charm for him at all, -and he thought the _appartamento_ rather worse as being larger than his -own little room at the hotel, which had hitherto seemed to him the last -example of bareness and dreariness. “A horrid little hole,” more adapted -for a dog than a man. - -“I’ll tell you one other thing,” said Paolo, taking him affectionately -by the shoulders before they sat down by the table; “if you will make -economies, and do well, Isaack mio, you will not live always in the -hotel. Me I dine there; it is the best thing to do; but live all the -time--oh no! It is only for Englishmen to be so extravagant like that.” - -“That is what I have been thinking,” said Harry, “if I could get some -nice rooms. You don’t understand about Englishmen. Dining every day at -an hotel is a thing nobody would think of in England. We have our dinner -at home, or, if the landlady is not a good cook, then perhaps--But for -my part I always preferred a beefsteak at home, even if it were not the -most perfect cookery in the world. Dining at an hotel is a thing no one -thinks of, except on a great occasion perhaps.” - -Paolo opened his eyes in surprise. “It is well,” he said, “you are more -prudent when you are in your own country. This is what you must do, -Isaack, amico. You will first find an _appartamento_. It is not always -that one is so fortunate as me. This is perfect--non é vero? It is all -one could want. A bed--ecco! a table, the sof-fa that has come from a -palazzo, even a little tabouret for the feet--everything. And then the -balcone! When it makes warm in the summer, in July and Agosto, it is, -oh! fresco, freschissimo so fresh and cool here! The first thing is an -_appartamento_. But in every way I am too fortunate. As soon I dress in -the morning, there is a caffè in face--you can see it if you look -down--where I can have my coffee in a moment. No waiting as when you go -to a distance, but at the moment. They are about to send us now the -coffee, amico, to clear our head. You will see how good it is. Then when -the time come for the other breakfast--what you call lunch--there is a -restaurant near the bureau. You have two very good dish, a dolce, and -dessert; and very little to pay. I will lead you to-morrow to that -place. And at last the dinner at the Leone. Figure to yourself so much -comfort all in one day! And you see the journals for nothing, and hear -what all the people say.” - -“Bless us all,” said Harry, “in that way you are never at home.” - -“At ’ome! I am at ’ome everywere,” the little Italian said; “all is -friends; whatever goes on, everyone makes part of it to me. And when all -is over you mount in your _appartamento_, you are tranquil, you light -your lamp, you fume slowly your cigar on the balcone, you go to bed. And -you make economies--great economies. Me even, that have not moche -appointment, I become a little rich, what you call at my ease. And you, -who will have moche more as me----” - -“Why should I? You are a great deal more use than I am,” Harry said. - -Paolo shook his head with a cheerful yet shrewd acceptance of the -position. “Si, I am of more use,” he said. “I am good for something; -you, caro, not good for moche yet. But look at you and look at me. That -expliques itself. That is the world’s way--what you call the world’s -way. Come; the first thing is an _appartamento_. You think, perhaps, it -is too high up here? But smell the good air,” cried Paolo; “that is of -itself refreshing--and the view! You will pay more scudi at the Leone in -a week than for a month here. Ecco! here is the coffee, and though it is -not yet quite dark, that amiable garzone, see, he has brought us a -lamp.” - -Then there entered, with a knock at the door, the man from the caffè -opposite, holding upon the points of three fingers a tray containing two -heavy cups of white porcelain and the small coffee-pot, flanked by a -plate of cakes, which Paolo’s hospitality had added in honour of his -friend. The waiter swung the lighted lamp in the other hand, holding it -by the handle at the top, and in this way had come up five flights of -stairs without spilling a drop of the coffee or jeopardizing the cups. -He put the lamp on the table with a “Felicissima notte, Signori,” -looking upon the two young men with looks as amiable as his wish. And, -indeed, the wish has more reason in it at the beginning of the evening -than at the end. Paolo was great as a host. He poured out his black -coffee as if it had been the richest of drinks, and pressed upon Harry -the odd little collection of cakes of every possible and impossible -flavour. Some of them were excellent, but Harry thought he despised -these innocent dainties. And he was not very fond of the black coffee: -how much better he would have liked an English cup of tea! As he sat -turning over the books which Paolo placed before him, and listened to -his friend’s explanations, gulping, with a great effort not to make a -wry face, occasional mouthfuls of coffee, there seemed to flit before -him a vision of his mother’s parlour--the fragrant tea, the rich fresh -cream, and herself, with that pale face which had not always seemed to -him so attractive as it did now. Once, to tell the truth, Harry had -thought his mother and sister heavy company, and in his heart had said -that nothing could be more dull than the long evening in the parlour at -home. Now that he was up here so near the sky in Paolo’s _appartamento_, -his ideas were different. The bare tiles underfoot, the wide, vacant -space, with the little bed in the corner, the dull old Margheritone -staring him in the face, with a pair of round eyes looking out from its -blackness--and all those knotty questions about the harbour dues to -occupy him, made as great a contrast as could be conceived to the old -curtains and carpets, and familiar walls, and cheerful fire, and the -grey sweep of landscape showing from the windows, stretching far into -the horizon. But he himself. Harry was very much the same, and in the -one place as in the other he was unsatisfied. He thought it had been his -surroundings that were to blame in the first instance, but now, after -the excitement of all this new beginning, and the novelty of his new -friends, and the new place, so unlike anything he had seen before, -Paolo’s _appartamento_, and the thought of settling down in another -such, brought him back, with a sort of mental gasp, to himself. Was that -all that was to come of it? It was scarcely worth while renouncing his -name and his family, and all his past, in order to settle down in a room -upon the fifth floor, among the chimneypots, at Leghorn. While he was -studying the dock regulations and harbour laws, his mind was busy about -this other perplexing question. An _appartemento_! Was he never, he -wondered, with an impatience that was almost comic in the humiliation -and depression it caused him, to have a sitting-room again? never to get -a meal save in public, in the grim _sala_ of the Leone, or in a gaudy -restaurant with little marble tables; never even a cup of tea to himself -in his own place, as an Englishman loves to have it; never to have a -carpet under his feet, but cold tiles; and nothing in the world that -looked like home? He kept all this to himself, and tried hard to grasp -at the laws and regulations about the free port of Leghorn, and its -etiquettes and its dues; but his inner soul was crossed all the time by -impulses of ill-humour and disappointment which he could with difficulty -restrain. It is always difficult, after a period of agitation and -excitement, to settle down again and resume a steady routine; and Harry -could not think of this kind of settling with anything but annoyance. -The inn was not any better. His little sleeping-room there was not so -good as Paolo’s. In the _sala_ there was always a sense of dinner -combined with cigars; and in the other parts of the establishment the -smell was of cigars impregnated with soup and divers odours of the -kitchen. And these were the only places where he, with his English -habits, had a chance of sitting down! He sighed for his little parlour, -with its Kidderminster carpet, and red moreen curtains, at Liverpool. It -was a palace to the _appartamento_, or anything that seemed possible -here. - -They sat so late over their books that Paolo did not as usual insist -upon accompanying Harry to the inn door. Paolo, for his part, had spent -a very happy evening. He was learned in those bye-laws which so -mystified Harry, and loved to enlarge upon them, and to impart -information in any shape was a grateful exercise to him. He liked to do -it, even when he was not--which he liked still better--doing a kindness -to a friend; and he was proud of all the possessions which he had -exhibited with such simple pleasure. It did not occur to him that his -home, which he was so happy in, or the simple routine of life which he -had set up for imitation, could fill any heart with dismay. He found -himself perfectly comfortable in it, why should not his amico do the -same? No doubt of the suitableness of this life to one as to another -crossed his simple mind. He crunched the biscuits which Harry disdained, -and drank the black coffee at which Harry made wry faces, and was much -pleased with himself, and very happy to think that he was setting before -his friend the best way to walk in. He was scarcely so pleased with -himself however when he was over-persuaded to allow Harry to go back to -the hotel alone. “No, I will re-conduct you,” he had said at first; but -Harry laughed at the unnecessary ceremony. Paolo stood at the top of the -great black well of a staircase and held the lucerna to light his friend -downstairs, standing patiently with the heavy lamp dangling from his -hand till he had heard the door close at the foot; and then he rushed to -his balcony to watch lest Harry should turn the wrong way, ready to -scream out to him if he did so. Even when he had made sure that his -friend had turned to the right, and not to the left, Paolo still shook -his head. “I should have re-conducted him,” he said to himself. It was -the only drawback to the perfect blessedness of the night. - -It was a glorious night out of doors; the Italian moon was shining with -a warmth and glory unknown to northern skies. Harry tried to think the -moon was as fine in England, but he could not succeed in this; -everything else was a great deal better in England, but there was -something to be said for the climate here, one was forced to -admit--even though one might not admit anything more. Harry walked home -(as he called it by force of nature) with much subdued irritation and -despondency, consequent chiefly on the apparent impossibility of ever -having a sitting-room, or any place it would be pleasant to sit in -again. The inn, though he called it home, was not less obnoxious to him, -and he asked himself, good heavens, was it possible he should never---- -He had got as far as this when another picture suddenly rose up before -him, and in a moment changed all his thoughts. It was of a dim room, -cool and dark in the midst of the sunshine, with a whiteness of floating -curtains about the windows, and tables covered with books, and a white -figure in a corner, close upon the open dark space of a window closed by -green persianis, through which the air was blowing softly. Ah! he said, -drawing a long breath, there was a kind of paradise! That was very -different from the _appartamento_. It was dark in his memory, as it had -been when he had suddenly stepped into it out of the bright day with so -much surprise that he could but dimly recollect the appearance of the -place. He wondered how it would look when the persianis were open, when -the daylight got in, or at night when the lamps were lighted, when the -place was fully inhabited? - -Instinctively, without knowing what he was about, he turned into the -street which led to the Consulate. His heart gave a jump against his -breast when he saw that the persianis were all opened now, and that the -lights in the room made it partially visible from the street. Evidently -there was a party going on, and he felt a little pang of mortification -to think that he had not been asked. There was a sound of music and a -great deal of talk, talk that sounded exhilarating and delightful to -Harry, though he would have felt himself a fish out of water had he been -in the midst of the polyglot conversation that went on in the Consul’s -drawing-room. A white figure was seated near the window, faintly visible -within the white curtains. He wondered if it was _hers_? He screwed his -eyes together as if he had been short-sighted, to try to see a little -better, but this was what he could not make out. The sudden glimpse of -this little bright world from which he was shut out arrested Harry all -at once in his discontented thoughts. Here was something which would -make up for all deficiencies. He stood for a long time under the -windows, trying to hear the voices within, with no eavesdropping -intentions, but only to console himself by the recollection that he had -far more in common with the Vice-Consul’s house and his society than -with Paolo, though he was so good a friend. And then he stood opposite -and watched, seeing figures vaguely glide across the room, figures which -the white curtains, swaying softly in the air, kept indistinct. He could -not distinguish her, he allowed to himself; sometimes he thought he had -traced her, but only to find himself deceived. Some one in the -background was playing the piano softly, though nobody paid much -attention. Harry could not tear himself away from the window. That was -life, he thought to himself; a man who had that house to go home to need -never be dull; and then he remembered, with a glow of warm satisfaction -and pleasure, that on Sunday, no further off, he was to go there. He -turned after this with a resolute step, and went back to the hotel and -his dreary little room, where he sat on his bed, gazing at the two -little lights of the lucerna which had been given to him to light -himself upstairs, for all the house was dark and at rest before he got -back--and thinking of that warm and cheerful scene. The lamp burned on -steadily, the only light in all the big hotel, and Harry sat and gazed -at it unwinking. Sunday afternoon! here was something to look forward -to. And _that_ was a house which was worth calling a home, which was not -an _appartamento_. He thought life must have an altogether different -complexion there. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE BONAMYS. - - -Mr. Bonamy, the Vice-Consul, was a man who ought to have filled a very -different position. He ought to have been Consul-General and a person of -importance. He had been long in the service, and he had done good work, -and there was nothing against him. But there are some people who never -will “get on,” whatever may be the circumstances in their favour, just -as there are some whom all the adverse circumstances in the world will -not keep down. He was rash, as may have been seen by his reception of -Harry, and he was one of those men upon whom experience has no power, -who never learn--who having been deceived twenty times are just as ready -to believe and be imposed upon the twenty-first. His own goodness and -rectitude were such that he had kept his position fairly, and his talent -and fine faculties had not been without acknowledgment; but he had not -“got on.” There was another circumstance too which kept him in his -present position. His history had been briefly told by Paolo, and was -one which everybody knew. Eighteen years before he had married a -beautiful girl, the daughter of an English merchant in Leghorn and his -Italian wife. They had lived together for a year, and the little Rita -had been born, when young Bonamy took his wife “home” with great delight -and pride to exhibit her to his friends. She had scarcely touched -English soil when she fell ill; it was an ungenial season, and the -Italian girl was of a delicate constitution. The young husband, to whose -mind danger or death never presented themselves as possible, always rash -and venturesome, and ready to trust any gleam of sunshine, had been to -blame in exposing her to the severities of the spring changes and the -east winds, and the result was that he who had left Leghorn in the full -zenith of happiness, returned a miserable man, alone, leaving his -treasure in an English grave. For years after he had been so stunned -with his grief that he was capable of little but the routine of -necessary work, and this period of deadly depression occurred just when -there might have been hopes of promotion for him. He did not want any -promotion. When he began to revive with the growth of his little girl, -and to find in her a substitute for the young mother whom he had -scarcely had time to know, it became a settled principle, almost a -superstition in his mind, that Rita must never leave her native soil; -she, at least, should never be exposed to those east winds and chilling -mists of England. It became a part of the training he gave her, a part -of the religion which everybody round was bound to. Whatever happened, -Rita was not to leave Italy; the risks her mother had succumbed to were -never to touch her. His living, his expectations, his life itself, were -nothing in comparison with this. He was not a man of a strong mind, as -may be easily perceived. There was but one thing which was utterly -precious to him, and that was naturally the first thing in his thoughts. -She throve here in the place where she had been born, just as her mother -had done before her; and if she were removed she would die. This made -him accept cheerfully the neglect of his superiors; and he had made -himself many friends in the place he had inhabited so long. The whole -population knew him and his story, and sympathized, with the ready -warmth of the race. It was known even to the dock-labourers, to the -sailors in the port, that the Signorina Rita was never to go out of -Italy. The people were all profoundly interested in her in consequence. -It was a compliment to them, to their genial skies, and the health of -the town, and the excellence of everything Italian, not to say -Livornese, which went to their hearts; and the Vice-Consul and his -daughter found themselves very happy in the place, which he would have -left long ago had he been a more prosperous man. - -This consoled him greatly for not getting on; indeed, he had lost -ambition altogether, and given up all thought of advancement; he was -satisfied with his life such as it was. It was a pleasant life enough, -no press or hurry of business, no excessive responsibility, a friendly -society round him, a number of people looking up to him, a kind of -representative position which pleased his fancy. The shipping and the -sea-captains who occupied so much of his time were not perhaps quite so -delightful, but then there are some drawbacks in every lot. He had a -pleasant house, which he had gradually filled with furniture and -pictures such as might have made a connoisseur’s mouth water, and he had -plenty of leisure time to enjoy the society of his daughter and of his -friends. Unconsciously he had trained Rita to be his constant companion -and confidant. He had not intended so to do; there had been no desire in -him to withdraw her from younger companions, to keep her to himself; but -when an intelligent child is made the companion of a mature mind, which -is yet not too mature, but still capable of something of the -indiscretion of youth, there is a charm in the intercourse which nothing -else can equal. To a girl especially the attraction is great. Rita, -almost before she had given up dolls and baby-houses, had begun to see -the bigger world in glimpses through her father’s eyes. She began to be -aware of a universe full of people, full of humour and meaning, -appearing behind like an inexhaustible background. And if she did not -absolutely find out books by the same means, yet she made the discovery -of most things that were beautiful and important in them. His opinions, -his ideas represented a whole new heaven and new earth to her, before -which the nursery and its childish joys faded away. She had begun to -know what he knew, to give an adoring echo to all his opinions, to -understand his occupations, when other children are still resisting -their first lessons, and resenting the interference of grown-up persons -with all their pleasures. The Vice-Consul confided all his difficulties, -when they arose, to her ears before she was twelve. She knew that the -“F.O.” was sometimes unreasonable, and that the shippers were -troublesome, before she had quite mastered English, which was not her -native tongue. Then there came a further development, when Rita no -longer echoed her father’s opinions, but had ideas of her own. This -followed so quickly upon the first, and added such a delightful variety -and animation to their intercourse, that the Vice-Consul fully believed -she had been a critic in her cradle, and that all her lively views upon -things in general had come to her direct by inspiration from above. - -She was seventeen now, though she looked younger. For five years she had -been everything that a grown-up companion can be, with something besides -that no grown-up companion ever was. They were everything to each other. -She reverenced him, and she laughed at him, and patronized his ideas, -and thought him the first of created beings. Nothing but a child could -so mingle veneration and superiority, the freedom of an equal, the -keenness of a critic, the enthusiasm of adoring love. There was not a -thing he said which she could not pull to pieces, nor any of his actions -that were not subject to her comments. “I would not have done that, -papa, if I had been you,” she would say; and yet she was of opinion that -of all human creatures there was not one, on the whole, who came within -a hundred miles of Her Britannic Majesty’s Vice-Consul at Leghorn. This -was the result of Rita’s observations during the dozen years or so which -she had unconsciously spent in accumulating materials upon which to form -an opinion. And this was no small thing to say, for a clever child is -the most close of observers, and far less likely to be blinded by -partiality than any other human critic. As for the Vice-Consul, he had -no such foundation of commonsense and close observation to support his -certainty that such another as his Margherita had never been born to -man. He worshipped his child without any reason at all. If she had been -stupid, perhaps even if she had been unamiable, he would have loved her -all the same; but he took it for a special instance of the goodness of -God towards him that she was delightful, and lovely, and sweet, and -clever--as well as that she was Rita, which last, however, was the chief -and unspeakable claim to his love. - -And the house in which these two lived together was a very happy house. -It is the privilege of girls to exercise this sweet reconciling power, -to make a father, or a mother, at peace with fate, reconciled to all the -troubles of the past. Perhaps it is inconsistent with the greater -self-assertion of young manhood to give so much thought, so much care to -the elder generation; certainly it is only here and there a -preternaturally excellent youth who ever fills such a place in the home -and the life of his parents as Rita filled to her father; and she was -not preternaturally good, but mischievous, and contradictory and -impetuous, as well as bright, and tender, and gentle. She never tried to -make her father happy, or thought of doing her duty to him, but only -loved him and lived with him in the most natural unconscious freedom of -word and thought. People may pass years under the same roof without ever -living with each other; but Rita poured her young abundant life into -the stream of her father’s without thinking that any other channel was -possible. Everything that the one did was interesting to the other, -everything that happened contributed to their more perfect union. It had -never occurred as yet to either that this life of theirs might change or -undergo any transformation until the time should come when it would be -split in twain by death; and that was a contingency which, as applying -to herself (to think that her father might die had scarcely occurred to -her), seemed to Rita the least likely of all possibilities, while he, on -his part, if he ever took it into consideration, did it tranquilly, -thinking of his own death, as men in the midst of their lives, with good -health and no appearance of failing, do think of that event, as of -something too far off to trouble one’s-self about--inevitable, and -bringing its own atmosphere of resignation with it, but too shadowy and -distant to disturb anybody’s peace. - -It may be imagined that the event of Harry’s appearance was much -discussed between these two, who discussed everything. Rita had been -very grateful to Harry; she had exalted him into a hero. The description -she had given to her father, when she came rushing to his side on the -night of the occurrence, white and panting after her run home, had been -that of a demigod. She had described him as tall and straight as an -arrow, towering head and shoulders over the common creatures about. She -described the little voice in Italian which she had welcomed joyfully -enough, and which had begun to intercede with her assailants with a -troubled tone of politeness, and how it had been suddenly broken short -by the strenuous English of the deliverer. Rita, when she got over her -fright, cried and laughed together over the incident. She made it into a -dramatic scene, setting Paolo’s tremulous entreaties to music--and then -broke in upon the cadence with short sharp English monosyllables, “Let -go that girl!” She put the most flowery Italian into Paolo’s mouth, then -brought the other voice in, strong and brief in a masculine monotone. -She did nothing but repeat this little entertainment all the evening -after she had got over her fright, and when her father appeared with the -hero, looking somewhat sheepish, but very strong, very English, and more -good-looking than might have been hoped, Rita had been delighted. She -did not take, however, the accident romantically, or with any -high-flown interest in her deliverer. Discussing him afterwards, she -allowed that he did not look particularly brilliant. - -“But what of that?” she cried. “Heroes never need to be clever. It is a -great deal more than we deserve that he should be so good-looking. He is -very good-looking, handsome and heavy, just like a hero,” Rita said, -“and with a story! It is a great deal more than we had any right to -expect.” But the story itself did not make any such impression upon her -as it did upon her father. Rita was cynical for the first time, and did -not think much of the quarrel with the family. “There are so many -stories like that,” she said, bending her brows a little; “it saves a -great deal of explanation. But he is not clever enough to have invented -it. He would have blushed and stammered, and even you, papa, could have -found him out.” - -“Even I!” said Mr. Bonamy; “you speak as if my stock of intelligence was -the smallest you knew.” - -“Not that,” said Rita, laughing, “but you know you are very easily taken -in, papa; oh, yes, you cannot deny that.” - -“You make a great deal out of a very little,” said the Vice-Consul, -almost angry; for it was his weak point, and consequently he was very -susceptible to criticism. “Besides,” he said, in his usual tone, “when I -am taken in, as you say I am, it is by regular humbugs, professors of -the art. There was that fellow from Geneva, was there ever a better -get-up? he would have taken in old Pam himself.” This was his synonym -for astute and wary wisdom, as some people say Old Nick. “But Oliver has -not a bit of get-up about him. Whatever he is, he is genuine, the least -experienced could see as much.” - -“I told you,” said Rita, “he is not clever enough to have invented a -story; you always come round, papa, to what I say.” - -“Yes,” said the Vice-Consul, “I _am_ a great fool about you, Rita, -everybody says that; no, he is not clever enough for a made-up story; -and he is so much in earnest about it that it must be true.” - -Rita did not reply. She had no desire to prove that her father was -wrong: and, besides, for once in a way her observations confirmed his. -She recalled to herself the big young fellow, with his ingenuous looks, -and that air of confused and deprecating surprise, as if he could not -understand why they should make so much of him; a humbug (she concluded) -would have made the most of himself, and shown no surprise. - -“Of course he will not be able to keep it up,” Mr. Bonamy said, “they -will find him out. By the way, remember to keep a look out in the agony -column, they will appeal to him through that. I. O.; they are rather -queer initials.” - -“What does I. stand for?” Rita asked. - -“Isaac Oliver. It is an odd sort of name too for a young fellow like -that.” - -“Isaac! I don’t believe it can be his right name. He is no more like an -Isaac than I am. Isaac ought to be a sort of soft old man, very nice and -gentle, but a little silly, like Isaac in the Bible.” - -“My Rita, you are rather profane. Now it sounds to me like an old Jew, -which is to say an old humbug, up to everything, flattering and fawning, -and ready to sell his soul if he had one.” - -“It is you who are profane, papa; my Isaac, of course, was an old Jew; -they were all Jews, all those people in the Bible: but he was more like -you, a great deal, for it was he that was taken in. _That_ cannot be his -right name.” - -“Whose right name? you jump so from the Bible to yesterday that you are -confusing. I am obliged to you for the compliment about the patriarch. -And as for our young fellow, I think it very likely that Oliver is not -his name; but an _alias_ is seldom carried so far as the Christian name; -he must be Isaac, I am afraid, though it is disenchanting.” - -“Poor Mr. Oliver,” Rita said. “There is not very much enchantment about -him anyhow. Yes, yes, he is just the right thing for a hero: but there -ought to be something behind, he ought to be a little clever, or witty, -or poetical, or something, before there can be any enchantment. Oh yes, -it was quite right to ask him for Sunday. He will be very -tranquillizing, quite Sunday fare.” - -“That was what I thought,” her father said. “You will try all your arts -upon him, you will turn him inside out. In half-an-hour you will find -out more than I would in a day.” - -“I shall not want to find out,” said Rita; “if he is so secret, why -should I try to penetrate his mystery? Mysteries, papa, I have often -told you, are seldom worth finding out.” And they both laughed at this -utterance of wisdom: but yet there was a kind of understanding, at all -events on Rita’s side, that it was she who was the most prudent of the -two. - -Harry met them at church on Sunday morning. There were a great many -people at the English Church, and they had the usual look of -sectarianism and conventicalism which a small foreign community, holding -its select little “diet of worship” (as we say in Scotland) in its -separate church, in the midst of a large Catholic community, always has. -It is hard to understand why the mere fact of not being able to say our -prayers along with the mass of our fellow-creatures, should give -everywhere that look of narrow superiority, yet lurking sense of -disadvantage. Amid all the salutations at the church-doors, which showed -how the little community hung together, Harry was shy of penetrating the -mass, and held himself modestly apart, waiting in the background till -his friends disengaged themselves from the crowd. A stranger was more -remarked in that close circle than he would have been in towns more -frequented by tourists; and his appearance was so distinctively, almost -so ideally English, that he caught a great many eyes. A tall young -fellow, muscular and strong, with curling fair hair, a light moustache, -a ruddy complexion, and an English made coat, at once attracted the -attention of the merchants and officials who made up the congregation. -Who was he? When the Vice-Consul was seen to go up to him, and he walked -off by Rita’s side, their fellow-worshippers soon came to a distinct -conclusion on the subject. He was some young English swell who had -brought letters from influential persons at home, and whom Mr. Bonamy -would naturally make the most of. That was the best of an official -position, was the commentary of more than one looker-on--that the best -people were always sent to you--that whereas all the straggling tourists -who were nobody, were recommended by troublesome acquaintances to -ordinary residents in a town, the Consul had all the people of -distinction, and though he himself held no particular rank, made -acquaintance, and occasionally formed alliances, with very superior -people indeed. Many looks were in consequence cast after Harry, as very -happy, yet very humble, he walked off by Rita’s side. He thought that it -was he who had the advantage, while the spectators considered him a -distinguished visitor, and envied the Vice-Consul, whose position made -his house the natural head-quarters for such fine people. He walked -through the shady streets, saying very little, feeling himself quite -happy without speech, and it seemed to him like the repetition of a -dream when he came in again to the cool dining-room, and sat down once -more between the father and daughter. It was only a few days since he -had done that for the first time, coming in, like a man in a dream, to -find an unknown world opened to him. Now the world was no longer -unknown, he had got his place in it, he had the prospect before him of -knowing it better and better, it was his home, as it was that of the -others. - -With a strange feeling of security and continuance he took his place at -the table. He was never a great talker, and he allowed his entertainers -to talk over him, not being so quick to understand their allusions, and -all the shades of meaning in their rapid conversation, as he would have -wished. Sometimes Rita would turn to him with a pleasant word, bringing -him into the current, sometimes Mr. Bonamy would say something that made -an answer needful; but for the most part he was silent, taking his share -only with looks. He did the best he could for himself by this means, -for his face was bright, brighter perhaps than his intelligence, and he -had the pleasant art of being interested, whether he quite understood or -not. His look, which was half wistful, half understanding, with a little -eagerness in it, a desire to follow what was being said, and a naïve -comprehension that it was slightly above him, caught Rita’s attention in -spite of herself. So far as she was aware, this young woman was more -fond of intellectual people and their discourse than of anything else in -the world. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was her preference -for this kind of society, her disdain of trivial minds, and the common -chatter of the everyday world. And she had already expressed her opinion -about Harry, that he would do very well for a hero of the muscular kind, -but as for any special interest, a man required something more, a touch -of poetry or intellect, or at least, if nothing else, cleverness, to -recommend him to the attention. It happened, however, two or three times -over, that when Rita’s eyes were travelling the length of the table to -meet her father’s, with whom she was talking, they were caught by -Harry’s, who sat at the side. Harry had uttered nothing that was not -commonplace, and, indeed, he had not said much at all; but when he thus -caught her eye, and forced her to look at him, his face was more -eloquent than his tongue. It was not at any time an unmeaning face, and -to-day it meant a great deal; it meant a conviction that he was very -happily placed between two such bright and clever people; it meant great -attention and admiration and interest. Rita was caught by it as if he -had put forth his hand to stop her as she passed him. Stupid! how could -she have thought him stupid? That look was not stupid, not even heavy or -pre-occupied, like so many other young Englishmen, who looked distrait -when anything was talked of beyond their own little capacities. Harry -had not at all this aspect. If his mind was not quite up to the mark of -their conversation his attention was. He wanted to listen and to -understand. She looked at him, thus, once, twice, feeling each time more -favourably disposed--and the third time she fairly stopped and turned -round and addressed him. - -“Mr. Oliver,” she said, “we are very uncivil, papa and I. We are so used -to talking to each other that, when there is anyone here, if he does not -stop us and force us to listen to him, we just go on. I have felt how -silly it was. I wish you would put a stop to us, and make us listen to -you.” - -“But I should not like that,” said Harry; “you talk a great deal better -than I do. Talking was never any gift of mine; but I like to listen. I -am picking up a great deal, though you may not think it. Everything is -so new to me here.” - -“Well, then, I will ask you a very silly question,” said Rita; “I will -ask you what everybody will ask you, and of course you cannot tell yet -how to answer; but you will answer all the same. How do you like -Leghorn, Mr. Oliver? Do you think you will like us when you know us -better? I hope you think that is a nice commonplace beginning,” said -Rita, laughing; and a faint little colour came over her of half -amusement and half self-reproach. - -“Indeed, I don’t think it silly at all; I am commonplace myself,” said -Harry, with a little sigh. “I wish I could be more remarkable, but I -can’t. Yes, I like Leghorn very much, and I think I shall like all the -people I know, more and more as I know them better. But I don’t know -many people. Except Mr. Bonamy and yourself, who have been so kind to -me, I have got but one friend.” - -“One friend, hear him! as if that was a thing that could be picked up at -every corner,” the Vice-Consul said. - -“I never saw anything like him,” said Harry, “he is like a child--and -very simple in his ways of thinking. He is twenty times better than I -am, and yet I feel sometimes as if I must laugh. You don’t know what -strange people we English are, Miss Bonamy. We can see how good a thing -is, and yet we can’t help laughing if it is a little out of the way.” - -“Then,” said Rita, “tell me why. I have no way of knowing but what -people tell me. There are things said about Englishmen just as there are -things said about women, in general. Now the women I know are quite -unlike each other. I cannot imagine any one thing that they would all -think or do. Are Englishmen all the same?” - -“Now, Oliver, be on your guard,” said her father, “that’s one of her -theories. She wants to push you into a corner and compel you to commit -yourself. Women have this and that way of thinking, we all say, don’t -we? and it’s quite true. ‘Really!’ says this little person, ‘I suppose, -then, women are all exactly like each other?’ Have a care, my young -friend; she looks innocent, but I don’t advise you to let yourself fall -into her hands.” - -“When I said Englishmen”--said Harry, faltering; then he gathered a -little boldness--“We are not all like each other: but this is rather -true of all of us--at least, so I think: we jeer at things we don’t -understand.” - -“Bravo,” said the Vice-Consul, clapping his hands, “I see you understand -our dear countrymen.” - -“We don’t mean much harm,” said Harry, led on beyond himself. “I suppose -that in other countries just the same happens in different ways. When -people act in a way we should not think of acting, we think it is so -strange that we--laugh at them. It is wrong, I have no doubt, and silly, -but still we do it. The first thing is, we laugh at them--Italians don’t -seem to do so. They are most polite.” - -“And the French don’t do it.” - -“Papa, they do a great deal worse,” said Rita; “for the language, for -instance, they are far more hard than you. When anyone speaks English -badly, you laugh, but you don’t mind. The Frenchman doesn’t laugh, he -is horribly polite--but he thinks the worse of you for ever after. I see -what you mean. There is a kind of a way you have of looking at things in -the same light, which does not mean that you are alike, or all thinking -in the same way. Perhaps,” said Rita, meditatively, “that may be true of -Englishmen--and women too. Yes, I see how that might be true. I am very -much obliged to you, Mr. Oliver, for putting it in so clear a light.” - -Harry could only stare at her with a mixture of amazement and -gratification. He to be applauded for putting something in a clear -light! and by Rita, who knew so much more than he did. He could not but -laugh within himself at the unlikelihood of it; yet he was gratified by -the thought. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -HARRY’S PROGRESS. - - -After this, Harry “settled down.” It was a somewhat disappointing, -disenchanting process, but still it was better than it appeared at the -first glance. Paolo, finding that his friend could not be happy without -a sitting-room, which seemed to himself the most unnecessary of -luxuries, exerted himself to procure an appartamento for him which -should include this, and managed, after a little delay, to do so, at a -price so modest that Harry was astonished, and the padrone di casa much -disgusted and indignant when he found that he had actually suffered his -rooms to go, at a rent extravagant only for Italians, to an Englishman. -The landlord was so disappointed and annoyed by this that the occasion -made him voluble; for “Ecco!” he said, “a countryman, that is--a -countryman. He knows as much as we do. He is aware of everything. He can -do what he pleases. That he should have the rooms cheap, that -understands itself: that is all just. But a stranger! And, on the other -hand, they want so much more, these strangers. They will demand -breakfast, and even refreshments in the evening! They are so lazy they -will not give themselves the pain to descend to the caffè for their -coffee, which is the natural way, but will demand to have it here, which -is endless trouble. I never could have believed that Ser Paolo, who is a -person of education, would so have treated an old neighbour.” He said so -much on the subject that Harry, with something of that impatience and -careless magnificence which are (supposedly) the characteristics of the -English, declared that, rather than be so persecuted, he would pay -twenty lire a month more than had been asked of him, an offer which made -the padrone think him a great fool, but a true Englishman, and which -drove Paolo nearly out of himself with indignation. It may be understood -by this fact that Harry soon picked up as much Italian as made him -understand at least the tone of address, whether it was friendly or -angry: and in smaller matters he was soon able to make himself -understood. - -The first night of his residence in his new quarters, when he heard -Paolo close the door behind him, and felt himself left all alone at the -top of a tall Italian house, without a soul within call, gazing round -him at the four bare white walls, his lamp looking at him with three -unwinking eyes, and not a trace of anything that looked like home--vain -word!--the young fellow was altogether overcome, and staring round with -a wild look of despair, was as near breaking into idle tears as ever man -was. But what was the use? He had made his bed (or his people had made -it for him, as he thought), and there he must lie. He had half a dozen -books on the table: one upon the laws that affect shipping and the -maritime code, another on International Law generally, the rest Italian -grammars and dictionaries, a volume of easy little stories in the same -language, and that well-known volume of Silvio Pellico, out of which so -many people have learned their first Italian lessons. They were none of -them very interesting to Harry. “Le Mie Prigioni,” when you have made -it out with the aid of a dictionary, is not more tempting than any other -book would be under these circumstances. They were as blank as the white -walls, the silent room, the dead solitude of the place, to Harry. A -yellow novel, if he could have got that, would have been precious to -him. But he had not even that to fall back upon. He crept dismally to -bed, unable to contemplate his fate, and turned his face to the wall, -much as his mother was doing at home. But in the morning things were -better; and though he never could reconcile himself to the gloom and -solitude of his appartamento at night, during the day things went -tolerably well with him when he began to know what was being said around -him, and to wake up to the new insight which a new language confers. -Gradually he began to take a little interest in the porter’s family, in -the shrill padrona, shrieking her orders and her commentaries from the -balcony of the fourth piano across the deep well of the courtyard, who -was a terrible nuisance, yet by and by began to feel homelike, so that -he missed her sharp peacock-cry when the arrival of a baby compelled a -brief withdrawal from her usual active survey of the affairs of her -tenants. And so the time went on, and months passed, and Harry became -accustomed to his life. - -There were times, however, in which those slow beginnings of content -which soothed Harry’s mind, rose into something a great deal higher and -brighter: and these were the hours which he spent in the private rooms -at the Consulate, where, by degrees, he became very familiar, a sort of -son of the house. Harry never knew how this happened, nor did the -Bonamys themselves, who, bit by bit, opened their doors more completely -to him. They had never done so before to any clerk. The office generally -was held at arm’s length by the head of it. He was thought proud by the -_employés_ generally. What was he, many even asked, that he should give -himself so many airs? But he never gave himself any airs to Harry. Even -when they began to forget that romance about the young squire who had -quarrelled with his family, which was entirely their own invention, they -did not turn away from or cast off the stranger who, falling into their -midst with no recommendations at all, had made himself so strong a -footing amongst them, partly from accident, partly from imagination. -Very soon, indeed, Harry came to be considered as part of the family; a -ready hand to be appealed to for everything; a ready hearer, though he -did not always understand: an invariably sympathetic and trustworthy -friend of the house. To Mr. Bonamy it was a great advantage to have some -one in the office whom he could treat upon this footing; to whom he -could speak confidentially of all that occurred, and with whom, if need -were, even in the bosom of society, he could confer on any accident of -official business, sending Harry off to do this or that, even from the -card-table where he was playing round games with the younger guests, or -out of the heart of a valse, when need was. Harry liked the dance, and -was merry and useful at the card-playing, but he never complained or -grumbled if he were sent away. He had to come back late when the company -was gone, to make his report, and that privilege atoned to him for the -self-sacrifice. On such occasions, when the great _salone_ was still all -alight, and Rita reposing upon the sofa, or buried in a great chair, -after her exertions, while the Vice-Consul had already put on the light -dressing-gown in which he smoked his evening cigar, the young man, -returning, had the pleasantest welcome. Mr. Bonamy put towards him his -box of cigarettes; the windows were all open; the warm Italian night -glowing out of doors; the stars shining, and every breath of the soft -air a delight. In that Italian room the light smoke was not thought out -of place. Rita had been used to it all her life. She might have taken -one of these little cigarettes herself and nobody thought any harm; but, -fortunately for Harry’s feelings, to whom it would have been a very -terrible profanation of a girl’s lips, she did not. But she lay back in -her chair, her pale face and dark locks relieved upon the soft, rich old -damask, and watched the two men with a smile. The Consul, who loved -everything that was beautiful, had his smoking-coat also made of -damask--a piece of brocade, in colours which Harry thought faded--and -he, too, threw himself negligently back in his chair and listened to his -young aide-de-camp’s report, with his fine head on one side, like a -benevolent prince listening to the information collected for him by a -young prime minister, all visionary, and eager in his plans for the -benefit of their people. Perhaps it was only a refractory ship-captain -whom Harry had talked into submission, or an impatient Englishman whose -suspicions of extortion had got him into trouble; and sometimes the -three would laugh over the characteristic follies of their countrymen, -and incapacity to understand the grandiloquence of the Italian -authorities. When Harry got to be sufficiently strong in the language, -he would himself make very merry over the _sentimento magnifico_ of the -professional pillagers whose charges here and there drove a stranger -wild, but who always professed the noblest superiority to all interested -motives. Rita, who was more than half an Italian, was sometimes piqued -by the laughter in which her father joined, and would stand up for the -kindly race to whom she owed half her blood and all her training. She -would shine out from the soft background when she thus roused herself in -defence of her people, her great dark eyes glowing, her white little -figure all alive with energy. “You are all made up of suspicions, you -English,” she said. “You think everyone wants to cheat you, to get your -money from you. Yes, and it is you who want to get what they have from -them. I wonder who it is who picks up the pictures, and the -_bric-à-brac_, and shakes his head” (which she did with a good imitation -of her father’s benevolent regret), “and complains that all the little -dealers are beginning to know the value of the things they have to -sell, eh, papa? Old Leonardi showed his _sentimento magnifico_ when he -let you have that little Ghirlandajo for next to nothing.” - -“I don’t believe it is a Ghirlandajo--of his school, that is all,” said -the Consul, blandly, “and he lets me have it cheap--not for nothing: he -lets me have it cheap because he thinks the English travellers will see -it here and will go to him to be fleeced, that is the best reason he -has, I fear.” - -“And if it is, you take advantage of it,” cried Rita. “Which is worst? -There was that piece of lace the other day. I said (it was quite true) -what shall I do with it, Signor Giovanni? it is not enough for a dress; -and he said, in the prettiest way, the Signorina shall put it upon her -handkerchief to remind her of old Leonardi. I took it; what could I do? -it would have made him angry if I had refused it after that. Was not -that the _sentimento magnifico_, Mr. Oliver--you who don’t believe in my -Italians? If I had offered him money for it he would never have spoken -to me again.” - -“I thought he was an old Jew,” said Harry; “but I see he is a fine old -fellow, and I shall go and buy something from him to-morrow. He will -cheat me; but I shan’t mind after what you have said.” - -“He will cheat you,” said the Vice-Consul, with equanimity; “though he -has a fine sense of the proper time to be honest, and the proper time to -be liberal all the same; but let us hear how you got your Englishman out -of his clutches, for that is the business immediately in hand.” - -And then Harry returned to his story, and told how the poor tourist had -raved and blasphemed, how he had bought a picture which was vouched for -as genuine, and it was found to be a flagrant copy; and how old Leonardi -had perjured himself over and over again, and sworn by all the saints -that there could be no doubt of its authenticity, holding up his fine -old Italian head in the very presence of the painter, who had made the -copy, and denying all knowledge of it. The tourist, whose settled -conviction it was that “the natives” everywhere were in league against -him, was, however, the chief point in Harry’s report. He had rather -thought so himself when he landed in Leghorn, and the feeling which had -made him refuse Paolo’s first offer of service, and carry his own -portmanteau, and hunt out the hotel for himself, still lingered in his -bosom. He understood the character so well that he set it forth with -great power before his audience; and Harry was so much gratified by his -success, and by the gradual blowing away of the cloud which was on -Rita’s countenance, and the delightful laughter with which she chimed in -after a while, that he rose into higher heights. He himself was just -beginning to awake to the humours of the Englishman abroad, and it was -very pleasant to find himself superior to them, as one who understood -the language and knew the people, and could explain a good many mistakes -and misapprehensions away. - -“Mr. Oliver, you are very English,” Rita said gravely, after the story -and the laughter were over. She was apt to change in a moment, and with -the smile just disappearing from her lips, to produce the most serious -remark. - -“Am I?” said Harry, a little crestfallen; for he rather thought he had -made it apparent that he was very superior to the English--that is the -common English who travel, and who are often, as we all hasten to tell -our foreign friends, so little credit to the race. Then he added with -more spirit, “I suppose I am very English. What else could I be? I have -only been a year away.” - -“Do you call this ‘away?’” she said, with a somewhat startled tone. -“Yes, of course it is ‘away.’ Over there is what you have always been -used to--that is home--of course;” but the idea seemed to be new to -Rita, and not to give her pleasure. The Vice-Consul had gone off to his -business-room to get something that was wanted, and the two young people -were alone. - -“It may be home,” said Harry, with a roused and almost irritated tone; -“but I shall never see it again. Home has so many meanings. I shall say -presently I am going home, and I shall mean my appartamento--as Paolo -calls it--not very much of a home,” he said, with a sharp laugh. - -“Isn’t it? I say home, too, when I speak of England; but I shall never -see it. Do you know I am never to be allowed to go to England, Mr. -Oliver? That makes me like to hear everything about it. Then you and I -are the same in that; but you will change your mind.” - -“You are much more likely to change your mind,” said Harry. “I--have -good reason----” - -“And do you think I have not good reason too? When my mother went there, -she died.” - -“She might have died anywhere,” Harry said. - -“It is harsh of you to say so. Yes, to be sure she might have died -anywhere: but they say it is so cold in England,” said Rita, with a -little shiver; the night air seemed all at once to have grown chilly. -She looked at the big window close to her and shivered again. Harry got -up and closed it without a word. - -“It is cold, when you expect it to be cold,” said Harry; “that is pretty -often, to be sure: but it does not take you in an underhand way like -this. In England it is all above-board; it blows right in your face, it -does not steal in like _that_ behind your back and chill you. Things are -honest at home. I think I could take you all over England, and you would -get no harm.” - -“Could you?” said Rita eagerly; “do you know a way? but how then, Mr. -Oliver? tell me, do you know a way?” - -“It would be just to take care of you,” said Harry, with a blush. “I -know _that_ way. I should understand that you wanted taking care of, and -I would take care of you. For my part, I should not be a bit afraid.” - -Rita did not notice the blush on his face. The desire of her heart was -to go to England, and this made her think. She had the credulity of her -birthplace about wonderful elixirs and miraculous ways of doing a -dangerous thing. She looked at him dreamily, yet eagerly, with her great -eyes. “But _how_ should you do it?” she repeated, “Mr. Oliver; if there -is some particular way, will you tell me? For if you only knew--if you -could only know how I wish to go to England----!” - -“There is no particular way,” said Harry; “if I were ever to go back -home, which I never shall--and if you were to go with me, which most -likely you never would--then you should go, and no harm would happen to -you; that is all I know.” - -He spoke abruptly, and he was flushed and hasty. Rita did not think at -the moment what it meant; she sat very quiet in her great chair, while -her father came in and resumed the conversation--thinking over what he -had said. Immediately there had risen before her a vision of the white -cliffs she had heard of so often, and of green fields and red roofs, and -of all the special features of English scenery which she had read of. -What could it be that made him so sure? “If I were ever to go, which I -never shall--and if you were to come with me, which most likely you -never would---- Well, no,” Rita said to herself, with a half smile, “not -much likelihood of that; how could I go with him? he means if we were to -take him with us--he means----” and then she came to a pause, and a -sudden reflection of the colour on Harry’s face wavered over hers for a -minute; only a minute. She was not altogether inexperienced in life; she -had already been the subject of several proposals addressed to her -father, which he had declined after reference to Rita, so that she was -aware that she was looked upon with favourable eyes by various persons, -and that the love which is so much talked of in books might light upon -her at any moment. Rita had, for her part, no particular objection; she -had even left the door of her heart open, so that when he was thereabout -that intrusive sentiment might come in if he pleased. But up to this -moment he had not come in; the door had stood open, but nothing had -entered except poetry and gentle thoughts. But Rita, after this -conversation, experienced a very curious sensation. She felt not as if -anyone had got in by the door, but as if some one passing had half -stumbled against it, finding it closed, and, no answer being given, had -gone his way. In the first haze of this idea she got up from her chair -and said good night, and went off to her room, complaining that she was -sleepy. But she was not sleepy; she sat down and began to think as soon -as she had got within the protection of her chamber. It was not any -personal feeling that moved her, far less any strong emotion; but all at -once she was conscious of a keen and lively curiosity springing up in -her mind, eager and lively as her nature. Did he mean----? What did he -mean? “If I were to go to England--which I never shall--and if you were -to come with me----” Why should she go with him? What reason could there -be for such a thing, what excuse? He must be mad to make such a -suggestion; but yet it kept coming back to her. “If I were to go, and if -you were to come with me.” Certainly the door of that hidden chamber in -her heart had swung to and closed, and somebody passing, a stranger, had -run up against it, and shaken it, as if to try whether it would be easy -to open. It was a very strange suggestion. Rita had been sought by -persons of condition, by people who had something to offer, and who had -made their proposals, as everybody who respects himself does in Italy, -to the young lady’s father. But here was somebody who was nobody, and -who took hold of the handle of that door of her heart, which she had -believed to be open, but which had evidently closed of itself, and gave -it a sharp shake, without thinking of her father or any consequences -whatever. She thought of it for a long time, turning it over and over -with the greatest curiosity. It was a new thing in her experience. He -wanted a great many of the qualities which she considered indispensable -in a man. First and chiefest of all he was not clever. He knew nothing -about books, he scarcely knew a picture when he saw one. Instead of -hunting about in the _bric-à-brac_ shops as her father did, and as even -little Paolo Thompson (whom Mr. Oliver called Paul-ó) was in the habit -of doing, picking up wonderful things now and then, this stranger gazed -with blank eyes at the treasures, and could not understand them. He was -altogether a different kind of man from any she had ever seen, a -homelier, duller sort of man; and yet he was not dull. The whole house -was quiet and asleep when Rita suddenly sprang up from this long -reverie, catching sight of her own big eyes in her looking-glass, and -wondering at the wonder in them. She had got a new idea into her active -little head. It was something novel and curious, and very amusing, but -it did not seem to her at all necessary that it should ever come to -anything. She wondered what he would say next, or how he would look, or -what he would do. She was pleased on the whole to think that now perhaps -she would have an opportunity of watching what a man looked like in such -circumstances as these, which is a thing always interesting and, some -people think, very amusing to see. - -As for Harry, he went home that evening with a sensation not less -extraordinary, but much more definite than that of Rita. He had not -thought of the meaning of what he was saying till he had said it; he had -not been aware of meaning anything, and yet he knew now that he did mean -it. What had he been doing? Without a name, without a home, without -anything in the world, he had been so foolish as to fall in love with a -girl who, in the best of circumstances, would have been above him. The -Joscelyns thought a great deal of themselves; but when Harry thought of -the parlour at the White House, and then of Rita’s drawing-room, he felt -that she was immeasurably above him, and that to say such a thing to -her was not only wrong, but mean and ungenerous. If you were to come -with me--Good life, why had he suggested that to her? _She_ come with -him? It seemed ridiculous, more out of the question to Harry than it had -done to Rita. He was angry beyond measure with himself for letting -himself be run away with, so to speak, by the foolish impulse of the -moment. For he had never meant to say it, or indeed to suggest any idea -of the kind. He was full of sense, though passion had him in its power -when it once got hold of him. In the meantime, however, there was no -question of passion. It was the pleasure of his life to be with Rita, to -see her, to do little services for her, to hear her talk; but when the -idea was suddenly set before him that he might marry Rita and carry her -away with him, Harry was more frightened than she was. He to think of -such a thing! He walked home at such a pace, with such a swift, -impatient step, that the few passengers in the streets turned about to -look after him, wondering what business he might have in hand--if he -were going for a doctor, or any such urgent occasion; but Harry was -walking fast only to keep up with his thoughts, which had suddenly been -let loose like colts in a pasture, and were all careering about wildly, -so that it was impossible to catch or lay hold upon them. How could he -have been so mad as to have let them loose! and he wondered had she -understood him? But how could she understand him, a child like that? she -was too innocent to understand. He hurried along to his apartment in -full chase after that wild herd of thoughts and imaginations. If he had -them but once safely shut up again under lock and key certainly it would -be a strong temptation indeed that would tempt him to let them loose. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -A REVELATION. - - -Harry found himself thus brought up, and forced to give, to himself, an -account of himself, such as he had never in his consciousness been -compelled to make before. He was in an altogether new position, and it -was indispensable that he should know where it was leading to, and what -was meant by it. There had been no occasion to inquire into this before. -He had plenty to do learning Italian, learning about the shipping, -getting into the duties of his new life. The Consul’s house and the -Consul’s daughter had been his little bit of happiness, his reward after -his work, his diversion from those dismal sensations of utter solitude -which had almost overwhelmed him at first; and he had not thought of -any complication of interests or feelings. Nothing need have awakened -him from this comfortable state if it had not been that unlucky -conversation about going to England. Why should he have talked about -going to England? He never meant to go back, or, if ever, not at least -until he had grown rich and altogether independent of _them_ and their -kindness. But in the meantime there did not seem any immediate -likelihood of growing rich, and why he should have stepped outside all -the boundaries of his life and suggested the sudden possibility of going -home and taking Miss Bonamy with him, baffled Harry’s comprehension. -Sometimes we say and even do things which on looking back upon them we -feel were not our doing at all, but that of some one else, rather our -enemy than otherwise, some one making a distinct effort to get us into -trouble. This was Harry’s sensation now; he was half angry and half -frightened. It was some malign, mischievous traitor wanting to betray -him, not himself, who had said that. He went home breathless, and when -he had climbed all those dark stairs to his rooms, and lighted his lamp, -he sat down, and, as it were, called a council of himself, to inquire -who had done it. But it is a great deal easier to feel that some one -has betrayed us in this way than it is to determine who has done it; for -those internal traitors have no names, and cannot be brought to the bar. -His investigation so far was fruitless; but it was fertile enough in -other ways, in ways in which he did not feel any anxiety to investigate. -Harry had never been brought into familiar intercourse with any girl -before. He had seen them at a distance, in circumstances which made no -approach possible, even if he had desired it; and he did not know that -he had ever desired it. Once or twice he had been struck by a pretty -face, and had felt a passing wish, mingled with reluctance, to make -further acquaintance with it; that is he would have wished it if he had -been able to get over his shyness, and the difficulty of knowing what to -say, and the trouble of overcoming all the preliminary obstacles. But -here none of these difficulties had existed; he had come quite naturally -into Rita’s acquaintance at once, as if she had been a comrade of his -own. There had been no shyness, no hesitation, but the easy talk of a -table at which strangers were constantly appearing and disappearing, and -a house in which this young creature, though so young, was the mistress, -and used to all the exertions necessary to set people at their ease. He -had admired her he said to himself, from the first--who could help -admiring her? but it had been so clearly her part to entertain and amuse -the people about her, and she had been so pleasantly indifferent, so -innocently at her ease, so oblivious of his presence often, so kind when -her attention was called to him, that all those little bulwarks of -freedom, which boys and girls when they are made conscious of each -other, set up instinctively, had been useless in this case. She was -neither afraid of him nor solicitous about him. Sometimes she took no -more notice than if he had been a cabbage, and at other times was as -seriously confidential as if he had been eighty. Harry had liked all the -ways of it. He had been piqued a little sometimes, but afterwards had -found it quite natural, and liked her friendliness and indifference, and -the occasional moment of household intimacy, when she would look at him -to indicate some little service she wanted, as she might have looked at -her brother, without words, taking his interest and compliance for -granted. And gradually, without any thought, this had come to be the -pleasure and support of Harry’s life. When he did not see her, when he -was not at the house for a whole day, it was a dull day indeed; but -still faintly illuminated by to-morrow, when he was sure to see her. -When she went away upon a visit, which happened once, the Consul’s -despondency kept him in countenance. Mr. Bonamy adopted Harry in her -place. “Come in and help me to eat something,” he said, “I can’t bear -her empty seat. When my Rita is away I feel inclined to hang myself.” -Harry had almost betrayed himself (to himself) by the warmth of the -sympathy which he bestowed upon the disconsolate father; but as Mr. -Bonamy ended by a doleful laugh at himself as an old fool, Harry laughed -too, and the catastrophe was averted, and so things had gone on for a -whole long year. - -What a year that had been!--far the most wonderful of Harry’s life. So -many new things had happened to him; he had been torn out of all his old -habits, and made into another man with a new set of habits--as new as -the light-coloured clothes in which alone it was possible to live on -those southern coasts. And he had become so much the more of a man that -he was now, so to speak, two men, one developed out of the other. He -looked back upon the Henry Joscelyn of Liverpool with a mixture of -amusement and pity. He had been a poor sort of limited creature, not -knowing much; going half asleep between his office and his lodgings, now -and then going to a poor theatre, walking about with small clerks in -other offices, who knew nothing more than their own little gossip and -the town news, and the fluctuations of trade. Perhaps it was a sign that -Harry himself had not yet reached any great elevation, that he thought -his present life so greatly superior. The reader knows he had not -thought so always. He had compared his big, bare room, with its four -white walls, most unfavourably with the carpeted and curtained parlour -of his Liverpool experiences. But since that time his mind had undergone -many transformations. His appartamento had become to him what Paolo’s -was, a decent and tranquil shelter for the night. He had no longer -thought of the respectabilities, of sitting there for a whole evening, -of drinking tea, and having his friends to see him there. These were old -customs at which he smiled. He had acquired a great many others which -were now to him not only a second nature, but far more enjoyable, more -lifelike, he thought, than the old. At all events, they were the habits -of the present, not of the past. And amidst these changes, the advance -in which might be questionable, were various other changes in Harry’s -life of which the advantage was unquestionable. To live half his time in -the Consul’s house, between a man of culture and education, and a young, -fresh, intelligent girl, who had grown up knowing a world of things -until then sealed books to Harry; and to have to do, not with mere -bookkeeping, and sales, and goods of various descriptions, but with men, -in a hundred little perplexities, out of which his skill, his patience, -his superior knowledge, had to deliver them--were educating influences -of the most active kind. He was a different man, and he felt himself to -be so. How much he was the same man of course it was more difficult for -Harry to see. - -And here, in his new life, he had come to the first great difficulty; -things had gone on smoothly, not a hitch anywhere. He had discharged all -his duties to the satisfaction of his chief. He had acquired the very -phraseology of a much higher class than that which he naturally belonged -to, and talked of his chief as if he had been a fine gentleman in a -public office. Many people, indeed, believed that Harry had been sent -out by the “F.O.” with special instructions to keep Mr. Bonamy in order; -and many more that he had come to Mr. Bonamy with the strongest -recommendations from that dignified and mysterious power. Nobody guessed -that he had been picked up off the streets, so to speak, by the mere -generous caprice and mistaken romantic fancy of the rich official, who -might, for all he knew, have been jeopardising the credit of the office -by admitting a young adventurer to its sacred shelter. Mr. Bonamy had -long ago forgotten that Harry had come to his present promotion in any -illegitimate or irregular way, or that the appointment had occurred -otherwise than in the ordinary course; and Oliver was his right hand, -his constant refuge, his aide-de-camp in all things. He had even -forgotten that he did not know all about the origin of the stranger who -was now so freely admitted to his house. He was rash in that as in other -matters, and though he would have given his life for his daughter it -never occurred to him to take those precautions about her which the most -selfish parent usually thinks it necessary to take. Everything had gone -smoothly for Harry. At the Consul’s house he had met “the best people” -that were to be found in Leghorn, the rich English merchants, and also -many Italians, old traditionary friends of Rita’s mother, who was of -Italian blood. By this time Harry had got a footing among them, and was -asked to other houses, and known everywhere. Everything was going -smoothly. He had no reason to be discontented or anxious about his -future life. Everybody knew him, and nobody knew other than good of him. -Whatever happened he would never again be the desolate stranger, with a -new name, and no reputation, who had landed friendless on these shores. - -And yet, with all these advantages, and this progress, suddenly, in a -moment, he was brought to a standstill by this discovery. What wonder if -Harry was provoked beyond bearing with himself and that traitor in him, -who would not be brought to book? There was something almost ludicrous -in his dismay. Why couldn’t you hold your tongue? he said, indignantly, -to that something within him. Who wanted to know what you were thinking? -What is the good of it now you have let it out? It was a ridiculous -discussion, there being no one to reply, but yet it gave expression to -the self-provoked and impatient character of Harry’s dilemma. For how -was he to banish it back again and go on as if that idiotic suggestion -had never been made? - -Love is not so simple a thing as people think, at least in these -artificial days. In the old simple story-books, and, indeed, often still -in life, when such a revelation as this comes to a man, he jumps at once -to the natural conclusion, throws himself at once into the situation, -wooes, proposes, and, if he is successful, ends by being at -least--engaged. Sometimes he does this with a noble indifference to -circumstances and possibilities, or, at least, an indifference which, -when he has spirit enough to take the consequences upon himself, and -boldly hew possibility out of impossibility, is noble. Sometimes he -leaps the intervening steps and thinks of nothing but of marrying as the -natural and inevitable conclusion. The woman invariably does this; love -to her means marriage, or it means nothing at all. It is an offence to -her delicacy to play with it, to keep any decision at arm’s length, as -men often think themselves justified in doing; so that it remains more -simple (unless she is a coquette) in her case than in his. But with a -man, now-a-days, at least, to enjoy all the gratifications and delicate -bloom of nascent love without coming to any crisis, which must make an -entire change of all these relations and modes of living necessary, is -often very desirable. But this reluctance to come to a decision, though -sometimes selfish, is not so always; and in Harry’s case it was not -selfish. He had not walked open-eyed into this snare which life is -continually setting for young feet; he had tumbled into it unawares; and -in his situation, being unlucky enough to have tumbled into it, his only -policy, his only honourable course, was either to get out of it with as -much expedition as possible, or to hold his tongue about it, and never -to betray his plight to the other person involved. But Harry had been -betrayed, to himself, at least, if not to _her_, and the question now -was, what was he to do? He sat and thought over this question, as on the -other side of it Rita was doing--though this he did not know, nor guess; -but he could not for his part make anything of it. He could not keep -away from the Consul’s house, or shut himself out from her society, -without further betrayal. His situation was such that if he remitted his -visits, if he failed to appear with all the ease and familiarity to -which he had been admitted, and which had been growing for a year past, -he could not fail to be questioned on the subject, and his secret drawn -from him. Even if he kept a little aloof from Rita, avoided her as much -as civility permitted, and avoided occasions of being with her, that -also would be remarked. What was he to do? For now that he had once -betrayed himself who could guarantee that, continuing to see her every -day, as he had been doing, he might, on some other occasion, betray -himself still more distinctly. His embarrassment and trouble grew the -more he thought of it. It could not be, surely, that he would be -compelled to go out upon the desert world again and begin anew? Surely, -surely, that would not be necessary! And yet, what was he to do? The -question on Rita’s side by no means interfered with her rest, save for -that hour or so when she chose to think of it, instead of brushing her -hair; but it took away Harry’s, upon whom all the responsibility rested. -Her feeling on the matter came only the length of a certain amused -interest and curiosity as to how he would conduct himself in the future, -and what he meant by these odd speeches; but his affected all his life. -Whether he should stay where he was, or go away; whether he should have -to throw aside again all his hopes of advancement, all his comfort and -renewed confidence in his fate, all hung in the balance. He turned -uneasily on his bed all the night through, dozing and dreaming of it, -and waking to ask the same question again. But the night brings counsel, -and when he woke somewhat late the next morning from the sleep which -overtook him at last in the midst of his deliberations, he woke with a -new idea in his mind, as we so often do, after a long consideration. The -first words he said to himself as he woke were, “I will ask Paolo.” For -a moment he could not tell what the momentous subject was that he was to -ask Paolo about. - -Paolo had continued to be Harry’s faithful friend; but their intercourse -had been disturbed by the society at the Consulate, for, except on some -special occasion, he was not important enough to be introduced to all -the fine company that assembled there; only now and then when all the -_employés_ were asked, and a little semipublic fête for them banished -the fine people, did Paolo enter these enchanted walls, and talk with -the young mistress of the house. He had scarcely ever talked to Harry of -the Signorina, but when he did mention her there had been a slightly -cynical tone in his remarks. To tell the truth, Paolo had never got over -that first appearance of the Vice-Consul’s daughter in the street at -night. He had recognized her, clinging to her old attendant, hurrying -away, while Harry, all unconscious of what was to come of it, had -stopped the Italians who were pursuing her, and summarily knocked down -the Englishman. Paolo was not ill-natured, nor given to ill-thinking, -but he was an Italian, and he could not imagine any perfectly virtuous -motive which could have taken a young lady out of her house at that -hour. That love or intrigue had something to do with it he was -convinced, and all the proof in the world could not have persuaded him -otherwise. But he did not wish to throw any indiscreet light upon her -proceedings, or to betray her to the world. With some sense of this, -though without ever explaining to himself how it was that he had such a -feeling, Harry had refrained from telling him the climax of the story. -He had left the Consul’s sudden friendship unexplained, Paolo requiring -no explanation of it, and feeling it the most simple and natural thing -in the world. But during the whole interval there had been in Paolo’s -tone a note of unexpressed warning against the Vice-Consul’s daughter; -he had not said anything, but he had left something to be inferred. This -Harry had sometimes resented, sometimes laughed at, but he had never -taken the warning or been moved by the tone. He thought it was a -prejudice such as one person sometimes feels quite unaccountably against -another; or that perhaps it was some pique; perhaps that Paolo himself -had admired too much the young princess who was so entirely out of his -reach: but whatever was the cause, he was conscious enough that Paolo -was not favourable to the lady of his thoughts. And he resolved -accordingly to ask the advice of his friend on the grand question only. -He would not give him any special information, or even indicate, however -vaguely, who the lady was. That he should speak to Paolo at all on the -subject showed that a change had come over Harry’s thoughts. It would be -too much to say that he did not entertain still a somewhat contemptuous -estimate of the little “foreigner” who had sworn eternal friendship at -first sight, and had wept, and even kissed his friend, in his rapture at -his good fortune. When Harry recalled that embrace he grew red still, -with the undying indignation which moves a man when he has been made -ridiculous. And he still treated Paolo _de haut en bas_, with a careless -superiority. But by this time he had learned to know that Paolo was on -some things a much better authority than himself, and that, though he -might be trivial and absurd on questions which Englishmen consider -themselves judges of, yet there were other matters, chiefly touching his -own countrymen, which he knew better than any Englishman. To have -attained to this conviction was in a way a moral advance for Harry, who -formerly had looked down upon “foreigners,” not thinking them worth the -trouble of studying, or esteeming the knowledge which was only concerned -with them and their ways. He had no opportunity of speaking to Paolo -till dinner. They were both of them faithful, more or less, to the -_table-d’hôte_ at the Leone, where they had first become friends: but -Harry’s attendance there now was irregular, and when he entered the -dining-room Paolo’s face became radiant with pleasure. He seized his -friend’s arm and gave it a squeeze of satisfaction. - -“But without doubt you go somewhere in the evening?” he said, with a -mixture of wistfulness and triumphant pride. He was proud of Harry’s -succès in society; but yet to have so little of him pained the faithful -soul. He had bettered his English, but perhaps he had not much improved -his happiness by his devotion to this stranger, to whom he had been so -useful. Harry gave him very little of his company, and no demonstration -of affection in return for his love. - -“No; I want you to come to my rooms, Paolo. I want to consult you about -something--we’ll have some coffee brought up there, and we’ll have a -talk.” - -“Benissimo!” said Paolo, glowing with pleasure. “However,” he added with -simplicity, “there is little that I can instruct you in now. You know -all--you are better as me. But if there is any case that is hard to -understand----” - -“You make me ashamed of myself,” said Harry; “do you really think I -never want to see you but when I have something to ask? I don’t think I -am quite so bad as that. Of course I have picked your brains constantly; -but still I am not so bad as that.” - -At this Paolo was up in arms, as if some terrible accusation had been -brought against him. - -“Pardon, pardon, Amico,” he said. “Do you think I am finding fault? do -you think I make myself a censure over you (he meant censor, but this -was unimportant)? It is all otherwise. To see you go into society makes -me pleasure--the grandest pleasure. If not me, it is my friend--it is as -good--better, as to go myself. You pick my brains--_bene_! my brains is -glad to be pick.” - -“I think you are the best fellow in the world,” Harry said, “and I am a -beast always to take advantage of you--to come to you whenever I want -you.” - -“What then is a friend?” said Paolo, with that glistening of the eyes -which Harry was always afraid of. And then the excellent fellow -suppressed himself, knowing Harry’s objections to a scene. “I am a -duffare,” he said, with a laugh, “if there is something I can do that -makes me glad.” - -“I want your advice, Paolo,” said Harry; “it is nothing about business; -it is not information I want from you. I am in a difficulty--I am in -trouble--and I want your advice.” - -“In troouble!” Paolo’s face grew long, long as his arm; his lively -imagination harped at various cases of “troouble” he had known: -defalcations at the office, difficulties about money, fallings into -temptation. His countenance clouded with anxiety and alarm. “Amico,” he -said, “I am all at your disposition--all at your disposition! Troouble! -let us not lose the time. That turns me the stomach, as you say. -Thanks, thanks, Antonio; but take it away--I cannot more eat.” - -“That’s nonsense, old fellow,” said Harry, plying his own knife and fork -vigorously, “you see it don’t take away my appetite. Come, eat your -dinner. I’ve not been going to the bad, if that’s what you think, you -goose.” - -“Go-ose? I am willing to be goose,” said Paolo, “if it’s all right; not -anything in the bureau? not with accounts, or money, or nothing of the -sort? Benissimo?--then I will have some of that dish, Antonio, and it is -all right.” - -“I wonder what you take me for,” said Harry, offended. “Money! do you -think I am that sort? No, no, Paolo. When you’ve finished your -dinner--you have eaten nothing but that maccaroni--we’ll go to my rooms -and talk it over. It is something about myself.” - -It was all Harry could do after this to persuade his friend not to -gobble up everything that was offered to him in his anxiety to get his -meal over. Paolo could not contain his curiosity and eager interest. He -almost dragged his friend along the street when dinner was concluded, -and clambered the long staircase like a cat, in his eagerness to know -what Harry’s difficulty was, and to proceed immediately to smooth it -over and ravel it out. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -PAOLO’S ADVICE. - - -The room was large, and low, and white. There was a little balcony -hanging from the windows; the usual bright-coloured pattern on the -walls; the usual sofa and chairs, and little rug on the tiled floor. -Harry had not taken any particular care of his room or its decoration. -The lamp burned with three little clear tongues of flame in the centre -of the scene. Paolo sat in a large chair, thrown back, his little -intelligent, intent face showing from the dark background; his feet -flicking in front of him. As for Harry, he was too shy to sit still and -tell his story under the light of his friend’s large, eager eyes, which -leaped at the words before they were said. He was walking about from one -end of the room to the other. On the table was the little coffee-pot, -the thick, white cups upon a tray. Harry did not despise black coffee -now. Sometimes he came up to the table, and poured it out and swallowed -it hastily; while all the time Paolo, swinging his foot in front of him, -and leaning back in his chair, never took from him his eager black eyes. - -“And the short and the long of it,” said Harry, “is that I have fallen -in love.” He turned his back to his companion as he spoke, and stood -looking out from the open window. “I have been about the house so much, -and seen the young lady so often, that without thinking, and without -meaning it, I have just fallen in love. Jove! what a beautiful night it -is!” said Harry; “I never saw the stars so bright: that’s just the -position of affairs. She is quite out of my rank, I know, as impossible -as the stars themselves: but that’s how it is.” - -“Fallen--in lofe?” Paolo mused for a moment over the words. “It is -droll, the English way of speaking. Is it then a deep, or a sea, or a -precipice, that you--fall.” - -“Oh, don’t bother,” cried Harry. “To be sure it is a deep, and a sea, -and a precipice. Why, every fool knows that. You are never thinking of -anything of the sort, going along quite quietly, minding your own -business--when all in a moment down you go squash, and there’s no help -for you any more.” - -Paolo smiled a benevolent but somewhat tremulous smile. - -“The young lady is very beautiful--that goes without saying,” he said. -“I had thought you would have taken your freedom a little longer, and -you wish to marry and range yourself. _Bene!_ it will be what you call -all oop with me,” said Paolo, with a slight quiver; “a wife--that goes -not along with a friend--not a friend of the heart like me. It makes a -beginning to many things, but also to some an end.” - -“Good gracious!” cried Harry, “do you mean to say you don’t understand -me? Am I in a condition to marry? I have not a penny. I have my little -salary, and that is all. If I could jump up and ask her to marry me, -above-board in our English way, do you think I’d ask any advice about -it? I don’t want you to tell me she’s nice, I know that myself a great -deal better than you could tell me. It is just because I can’t marry, -and ought to hold my tongue and never say a a word about it--and yet -can’t help seeing her continually, that I don’t know what to do.” - -Paolo looked at him with a still more wistful, anxious face. He was -terribly perplexed. There was an alternative which was not at all -impossible to his imagination; but having on many occasions already come -in contact forcibly with the English mind, as represented in Harry, he -was afraid to state or refer to the other side of the question, which -nevertheless was not at all terrible to himself. He looked very -wistfully and earnestly in his friend’s face, trying hard to read and -make out what was in it. What was in it? Did he mean----? Paolo could -not tell whether he might venture to say what he would have said easily -enough to many of his other friends. - -“You would then--that understands itself; but to put it into words, -above all with an English what you call Puritano--like you; you would -then--make a little arrangement--you would then propose--without going -to church.” - -“Eh?” said Harry. He turned round upon his friend with blazing eyes. -“Eh?” The monosyllable was more terrible than a whole chapter of -invectives. Astonishment, non-comprehension, yet at the same time -alarmed and furious understanding were in it. Paolo, who was a miracle -of quick intelligence, saw all that was in Harry’s look almost before he -himself was conscious of it, and he mended his indiscretion with the -rapidity of lightning. - -“I have make a mistake,” he said. “I have not understood. It is so -sudden, I had no preparation. If you will perhaps tell me again?” - -Harry stared with wide open eyes like a bull, not quite knowing whether -to charge an adversary, or to turn away from an insignificant intruder. -The more peaceable impulse prevailed. He had stood still gazing at -Paolo, who, mentally trembling, though he put the best face he could -outwardly upon the matter, met his friend’s gaze with a deprecating -smile. After a minute he resumed his pacing about the floor. - -“I see you don’t understand,” he said, with something between a groan -and a sigh. “Well then, I’ll try again. Here are the circumstances. I am -admitted to the house, a very nice house, in which I am very happy. The -father puts faith in me; he trusts me like a friend; the young lady -is--everything that is nice. Well! don’t you see? like a fool, instead -of keeping quiet and enjoying all this, like a fool I have gone and -fallen in love with her. And last night I was as near betraying -myself---- Now if I go on I’ll be more and more tempted to betray -myself. I can’t keep away from the house--it is not possible. I can’t -offer to the young lady because I am not good enough for her, and I have -no money. Now what am I to do?” - -“You were at the house of the Signor Vice-Consul last night?” - -“Never mind where I was,” said Harry sharply, “tell me what I am to do.” - -“It would be well, amico mio, that your confidence was more great, or -none at all,” said Paolo. “If it should happen that I possessed the -acquaintance of the father and the daughter----” There was a little -incipient smile upon his lip that drove Harry wild. - -“I believe you think badly of every woman,” he cried; “all the worse for -you if you do. I am not going to make any confidences of that sort. Look -here--you know more about society than I do. You know how people are -expected to behave here. Ought I just to cut the whole concern, though I -don’t want to--and take myself off?” - -Harry came to a sudden stop in front of his friend when he asked this -question, and, for his part, Paolo almost screamed with alarm. - -“Cut--the whole concern? That is to go away?” - -“To go away,” said Harry, discharging all the breath out of his -capacious chest in one great sigh, and throwing himself into the second -great chair opposite Paolo. His friend grew pale; his olive cheeks were -blanched; the lids were puckered round his anxious and almost despairing -eyes. - -“That is what you must not do--that is what you shall not do! It is not -permitted to throw away, to make such a sacrifice,” cried Paolo, with a -rapid succession of phrases, one broken sentence hurrying upon another. -“No, no, no, no. Imagine to yourself that all goes so well. The world -regards you with so favourable eyes; you are everywhere received, -everywhere received!--a favourite, Isaack mio. But no, no; this must not -be--for a girl--for a promise--for a caprice, you will not throw away -your career.” - -Harry did not say anything. He lay back drearily in his chair, his whole -person making one oblique line from his head, which rested on the back -of the chair, to the feet stretched out on the floor. He was not likely -to talk about his career, but he felt to the bottom of his heart the -dismal alternative: to go away; to throw up everything; to resign -himself to another new and much less favourable beginning. His new start -in Leghorn had been made in circumstances so extraordinarily favourable -that they looked like a romance, and he himself could scarcely believe -them true--all the more reason why he should not presume now upon the -hospitality of the house which had taken him in; but he never could by -any possibility hope for such another piece of good fortune. In all this -he put Rita herself out of the question. Perhaps he did not feel, as a -lover sometimes does, as if his entire life was involved in her -acceptance of him. He was a sober-minded young man. It would cost him a -great wrench, it would take the colour and the pleasure out of his life -if he were banished from the happy rooms in which she reigned. But yet, -honour requiring it, he could do this and live; he was not afraid of -himself so far. But how to continue here in the enjoyment of his other -advantages and withdraw from the house in which he had been received so -kindly, he did not know. It would be impossible without explanations, -and what explanation could he give? - -“Look you ’ere,” said Paolo, rising in his turn, taking advantage of all -the devices of oratory to move his friend, “lofe, that is one thing; -life, that is another. For a capriccio I say nothing. We all have such; -by times it will seem as though you live not but in possession of the -object; but after, that will pass, and you will laugh, and all will go -on as before.” - -“Hold your tongue; you don’t know anything about it,” said Harry, with a -contemptuous wave of the hand. - -“I have had my experiences like another,” said Paolo, mildly. “I am not -an ignorant. It is for a moment you suffer, you think all is ovare. -But--oh, bah!--when it is ovare so many things remain. There is the -bureau,” said Paolo, counting on his fingers, “there are the events of -the day; there is the table--for you must always eat; there is -society--which is made,” he added sententiously, “of other objects. In -brief, amico mio, there is to live. That must be done all the same. For -the moment it may be hard--but sooner or later the time of calm will -arrive--What then? If it be certain that an hour will come when you -will have had enough, when you will become weary----” - -Harry sat up in his chair. “What are you talking about?” he said. - -With his honest English imagination he did not know what the other -meant. He had never read a French novel in his life (he could not, -indeed, if he had wished), nor any English ones of that sort. According -to him, when a man “fell in love” it was with the intention of marrying -the girl he loved, and living happy ever after. The idea that it would -last only for so long, and that there would come a time when you would -have enough, and be weary--a moment which must arrive sooner or -later--was such a thing as had no meaning to him. Paolo turned, too, -when his friend said this, and gazed at him, startled and wondering. -Suddenly the little Italian became aware that he was speaking another -language, a tongue unknown to Harry. He did not know Harry’s tongue so -far as this went, but being very quick and intelligent he perceived at -once that it was not the same as his, and that in speaking as he did he -had completely missed Harry’s comprehension. This took away from him the -power of speech. How was he to find out Harry’s language? They remained -for a full minute thus, baffled each by each, gazing at each other: -Paolo, small and keen, trying hard to make his friend out; Harry, large, -obtuse, confused, wondering what on heaven and earth this strange little -being could mean. - -“Look here,” he said at last, “I’m English, you know. I don’t follow you -a bit. Perhaps you’re too refined, and all that. You don’t fathom my -difficulty, and I don’t understand in the least what you mean. Here’s -what I want: just listen. I am fond of a girl, but I daren’t tell her -I’m fond of her, because you know I have nothing to marry on, and I am -not such a cur as to ask her to bury herself up for years waiting for -me; and besides, it wouldn’t be handsome to her father, who has been -very kind to me. What am I to do? Ought I to go right away? I don’t want -to do that. Or can you tell me how I’m to put a padlock on my tongue, -and go on seeing her, and never betray myself? No, by Jove! I don’t -think I am strong enough for that.” - -“There is one thing will make it more easy,” said Paolo--he had dived -deep into the records of his own experience to find precedents, but he -found nothing which could throw any light upon so strange a case, and -he was now casting about blindly for something to say--“there is one -thing. This lady, this Signorina--is she then--what shall you call it? -disposed to respond to you?” - -Harry’s face grew crimson. He gave a rapid glance back upon all their -intercourse. He seemed to see Rita’s unconscious, tranquil face. Even -when he had made that foolish speech about taking her to England she had -been moved not a hair’s breadth. She had taken it with perfect calm, as -one who had never thought upon the subject might quite well do. “I don’t -think so,” he said, quickly, not looking his friend in the face. - -“Then it is moche more easy,” said Paolo. “There is nothing to do, amico -mio, but to be silent--what you call hold your tongue: and all will be -ovare. When the lady will respond it is different--when she will give -you a glance, a smile, a permission to say what perhaps ought not to be -said.” - -“There is nothing of the kind in the whole business,” said Harry, -bluntly; “you are thinking of your intrigues, and all that Italian -nonsense. English girls don’t understand it any more than I do.” - -“Then the Signorina--is English?” Paolo ventured here to give vent to a -little laugh. “But you must not be too secure that she understands no -more than you. Perhaps there is in the lady a little Italian blood!” - -“Paolo,” said Harry, “you have the most unreasonable, idiotic, offensive -prejudice against----” - -And here he paused--for had he not been careful all this time to keep in -the background the name of the lady? He stopped, and he looked at Paolo -with curious, anxious, defiant eyes. - -Paolo would have laughed had he dared: but he did not venture to laugh. -It was too serious. “I have no prejudice,” he said. “It may be that I -think a little in Italian, one cannot help one’s thoughts. But then why -will you ask me? If the lady is indifferent where then is the difficulty -of to hold your tongue? But if that is otherwise--listen. The papa, it -is to him one speaks when it is of marriage. Love, that is another -thing. You do not understand, amico,” said Paolo, with a plaintive tone, -“the difference. There is great difference. They are two things -all-together. Marriage,” once more he counted upon his fingers, “that -will mean the papa; love--ah! that will mean the moment, the -opportunity, the response.” - -To these last words Harry paid no attention. He scarcely heard them. But -the others seemed to throw a sudden light upon the whole subject. He -rose up again and resumed his promenade about the room, biting his nails -and knitting his brows. “By Jove,” he said, at last, “Paul-o, you’re not -half such a foolish little beggar as you look. That is the thing to do. -I wonder I never thought of it myself. To be sure, that’s the thing to -do.” - -“What is the thing to do?” Paolo asked, bewildered. But his friend made -him no direct answer. After a good deal more of that pacing up and down, -he came back and patted his counsellor on the back so vigorously that he -almost took away Paolo’s breath. - -“That is the very thing,” Harry said. “You are a clever little beggar -after all. I should never have hit it out all by myself; but I see now, -it’s the right thing to do. Not too easy though; I can’t say that I -shall like it a bit; but one can see in a moment that it’s the right -thing to do.” - -“What is the right thing?” Paolo asked again; but he got no reply. Harry -fell a-musing as he sometimes did, letting the little Italian go on with -talk, to which his friend paid no attention; and afterwards he walked -with Paolo to his rooms, paying just as little regard to what he said. -It was another clear, starlight night, soft and cool as the nights are -in an Italian spring. There was no chill to freeze the blood; but all -was balmy and soft. He went along the streets with their high houses -reaching almost up to the sky, looking up to the narrow lane of radiant -blue above, all living and sweet with stars. He thought his problem over -again, going step by step over the same way which he had traversed -before--and it seemed to him that he had at last found the true and the -only solution. He could not withdraw himself from the Vice-Consul’s -house without an explanation; that would be impossible; therefore the -only thing to be done was to go to the Vice-Consul himself, and tell him -how the case stood. “I cannot be sure of myself if I go on seeing her -every day; therefore I must give up seeing her every day, and you must -know why.” Probably he would not tell his story so briefly as this; -there would be explanations to give, and many digressions probably from -the main theme; but that in effect would be all that Harry would have to -say; and certainly it was the right thing to do. He took it for granted -that Paolo had suggested it, though in reality it was an alternative of -a much less satisfactory kind that Paolo had suggested; but all the rest -that he had said vanished from Harry’s practical mind, leaving this one -piece of advice behind, and no more. Paolo was no fool, though his way -of thinking might not be much like an Englishman’s. Englishmen did not -go to the father first, but to the daughter, to know what their chances -were; but for once in a way the other mode was the best. He took a long -walk after he left his friend, traversing all the streets which now he -knew so well, and further still to where the salt air of the sea blew in -his face, and refreshed his soul. He would not trifle with the occasion, -but go at once to-morrow and get it off his mind. So he said to himself. -And he came home past the house from which he was henceforward to be -banished. It was late, and the sitting-rooms were all dark; but Harry -knew that a little light in one window indicated Rita’s room--probably -the faint little _veilleuse_ which watched over her sleep; and that in -another was the lamp by which the Vice-Consul was smoking his last -cigar. He stood and looked piteously at the house. It had been a kind of -home to him, in one way more than his own home had ever been. Standing -outside in the night it appeared beautiful to him, as never house had -appeared before. He had not appreciated the _bric-à-brac_, or known what -to say about the pictures; but now each article of the furniture -suddenly appeared to him in a new light. It was all beautiful; it was -such a place as a palace might be--a house for a queen; and to think -that he had almost lived in it for so long, and that now he was to enter -there no more! Harry was not like the Peri at the gate of Paradise; he -had a still more pathetic, a heart-rending sense of loss. He had been -there yesterday; but he was not to be there again perhaps for ever. Why -should he go away? and yet he must go away; he must keep himself at a -distance from those dear doors. Slowly there gathered in his eyes a -painful dew; it did not fall in tears, which he would have scorned -himself for shedding, but it blurred and magnified all he saw. Yesterday -so much at home, so familiar in the place, to-morrow with no entrance -possible to him any more! and all by no fault of his or anyone’s; by no -levity on _her_ part, or presumption on his; all unawares, no one -thinking of any danger. It seemed to Harry, standing outside there, as -if there was something very hard in such a wayward accident of fate, as -if some malign spirit must have taken pleasure in twisting the threads -wrongly; in making trouble out of the most innocent situations in life. -He had never meant to go further than liking--no one could help going as -far as liking; but the unlucky fellow, without meaning it, had taken the -step farther, and loved; and now all his card-castle of happiness had -tumbled down, and everything was over. There was nothing wrong in it--no -fault in it one way or another: and yet a great many faults would have -produced less confusion and pain. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -WITH HER FATHER. - - -Next morning Harry went to the office with an air of resolution about -him which no one could have mistaken. He thought the others looked at -him curiously with investigating eyes, which, indeed, was true enough; -for his predecessor there never could make out how it was that the -stranger had gained so much interest with the Consul, and Paolo, who was -the only other person present, was full of the most anxious wonder and -suspense. But, as it happened, Harry was kept so fully occupied all day -that he could not say a word to the Vice-Consul, and his air of -resolution and sense of being wound up for a great crisis, came to -nothing. But he did not go near the Consulate in the evening. Had things -been in their ordinary course he would, in the most natural way, and, -indeed, with a semblance of necessity, have proceeded there to consult -Mr. Bonamy about some matter of business, or to ask directions from him. -But he forbore. He sat in his own rooms all the evening, feeling it -unutterably long, trying to amuse himself with reading, and finding very -little amusement in that somewhat unwonted exercise. He had been -“reading up,” with a great deal of industry and some interest, books -which he had heard discussed in the Vice-Consul’s house, and in this way -had at least procured a good deal of information, the advantage of which -was evident. But Harry had not read for enjoyment, and now that things -had come to this pass, and that he was about to be compelled to give up -the society of the Bonamys, and lose the gratification of pleasing Rita, -it seemed to his practical mind that there was no great reason for -continuing those studies. It was quite likely that he never would live -among such people again, and why should he take so much trouble--trouble -taken with the idea of pleasing them? it was no longer worth his while. -He was driven back to his books indeed by the tedium of the long, -unoccupied evening, for he had no heart to go out, to be waylaid by -Paolo, and have questions put to him which he would find it very -difficult to answer. But he yawned a great deal, and went to bed very -early, and slept badly in consequence, tossing about for two hours and -hearing the melancholy clocks peal. Next day he was resolved he must -speak. Indeed, it would be indispensable that he should, as it was the -day on which Rita received, and he had never yet been absent from her -drawing-room on that special evening. He had a good opportunity this -time, for the Vice-Consul called for him as soon as he appeared after -his luncheon, and bade him bring certain papers to be examined. “I quite -expected you to have brought them last night,” Mr. Bonamy said. “For two -nights we have not seen you, Oliver. Rita was asking me to-day whether -you were ill. I hope you are not ill. There’s no fever here that I know -of; still it is always well to take care.” - -“I am not ill, Sir,” said Harry, colouring high, and then growing pale; -“but there was another reason. I should like to speak to you for a few -minutes, about myself, if you could spare the time.” - -“Certainly I can spare you the time,” said the Vice-Consul, readily; -“but not now, you know. Come to me again as soon as the office is -closed. Shall we talk your business over here, or in the house?” - -“Here, if you please,” said Harry. - -“Here be it, then. Do you know you excite my curiosity? you look so -serious. But I hope it’s nothing disagreeable, nothing to interfere with -our alliance?” said the Vice-Consul, good-humouredly. He thought he knew -exactly what it was. No doubt the family had found him out, and Harry -was about to be recalled to its bosom. This would give Mr. Bonamy -himself a little regret, and he could understand that to leave a place -where everybody had been kind to him would be a sort of trial to the -young man; but at the same time it was far better for him that he should -be reconciled to his family. So he went through his business with a -little gentle interest, looking forward to the _éclaircissement_. It was -like the third volume of a novel to the Vice-Consul, and even something -more than that, more than the mere end of a story which had interested -him--for it would also settle various questions in his mind, and prove -if he had been right or not in the instantaneous opinion which he had -formed about Harry’s concerns. He felt quite sure that he would prove to -have been right. By the time Harry returned to him, after the work of -the afternoon was done, he had made out within himself quite what the -scene was to be. The young man would say: “My father is here;” or “My -brother is here,” as might be; and a hale, hearty old country gentleman, -or a young, ruddy, fresh-coloured youth, like Harry himself, would be -brought in and presented to him, and he would give himself the -gratification of saying, “This is precisely how I expected it would be; -I have been looking for you this past year daily, though I had no notion -who you were.” When Harry came back with the same face of serious -excitement the Consul almost laughed. “Bring them in, bring them in,” he -said, “I have nothing to say against you. You need not be afraid that I -will give you a bad character.” Harry looked at him with that look of -blank astonishment which so often turns into lofty superiority and -disapproval of their seniors’ folly in youthful eyes. - -“Bring--whom in?” he said. - -“Your people, to be sure, my dear Oliver. Come, Oliver, I am not an old -wife; you can’t conceal it from me.” - -“I know nothing about my people,” said Harry, hastily; “I have nothing -more to say about them than I have already told you. Things are exactly -as they were between them and me. What I have got to tell you is a very -different sort of thing. But you will see by it, at least, Sir, that I -have no wish to conceal anything from you.” - -“Bless my soul!” said the Vice-Consul, “what’s the matter? Have you got -into any scrape? Have you come in contact with the police? What is the -matter, my boy?” - -“It is nothing outside of this house, Sir,” Harry said, with a grave -smile; “the police have got nothing to say to it. If it is a scrape it -is one I have got myself into, and I must get myself out of it. Anyhow, -it is not likely to hurt anybody but myself,” and here, in spite of all -his precautions, his lip quivered a little. At this moment, the very -worst for such a strong wave of feeling, it suddenly came over him what -a tremendous change it would be, and how much it would hurt himself--if -nobody else. - -“You alarm me,” said Mr. Bonamy, growing grave in his turn. “My dear -fellow, I hope you feel that I take an interest in everything that -concerns you, and that you may safely confide in me----” - -“Yes, Sir, I am sure of that,” said Harry; and then he added; “all the -more that it concerns you too.” - -Mr. Bonamy pushed away his chair from the table, opened his eyes wide, -and looked at Harry as if he thought him mad. - -“I can’t come to your house any more, Sir,” said Harry, “that’s what I -wanted to tell you. I’ve enjoyed it very much, and it has done me more -good than anything else in my life--but I ought not to do it, and I -can’t do it any longer. I hope you won’t think I am an ungrateful cur; I -don’t think I am that. But I must give it up, Sir, and I hope you’ll -excuse me for it. I’d rather not say any more.” - -“Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul, greatly disturbed, “what is the meaning -of this? Do you mean there is something in your past--something in your -character and actions that makes you unfit to be my visitor? I have -always trusted in your honour. If it’s that, and your conscience has -been quickened to find it out, of course I have nothing more to say.” - -“It’s not that,” said Harry, bluntly. “I am not afraid of my -conscience. It says as much to me, I suppose, as to other people; but -you might hear all it says and welcome. There is nothing against my -character here or elsewhere. You know as much harm of me as there is to -know.” - -“I know no harm of you,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, don’t alarm -me. If you find we don’t suit you--though by your manner I should never -have guessed it--why, then, give us up, my fine fellow, and there’s no -more to be said.” - -Harry laughed a somewhat tremulous laugh. - -“I should think you did suit me,” he said. “I don’t believe I was ever -half so happy before.” - -“Then, in the name of wonder, what does this mean?” the Vice-Consul -cried. - -Harry cleared his throat; his lips were beginning to get parched and his -throat was dry. - -“Did you never hear, Sir,” he said, abruptly, “of a fellow falling in -love--with a girl he’d no business to fall in love with?” - -Mr. Bonamy half rose out of his chair, then changed his mind and dropped -back again. His own face became suffused with colour. A sudden -exclamation came from his lips it spite of himself. - -“Is this what has happened to you?” he said. - -“This is what has happened to me,” said Harry. “I’m very sorry--nobody -can be more sorry--it shuts me out from a great deal I had got to be -proud of, and happy in. I wish I had made any blunder in the world -rather than this; but it’s done, and I can’t help it. So the only thing -I have got to do now is---- well, either to stay away from the house, or -to go away altogether, as you think best.” - -“I suppose then that at my house you run the risk,” said the -Vice-Consul, with suspicious breaks in his words, either of doubt or -excitement, “of meeting--the young lady?” - -Harry did not say a word; but he looked at him fixedly, with a deep -colour flaming over his face. At this the Vice-Consul gazed at him with -an alarmed expression, gradually catching fire too. - -“You don’t mean to say----?” he cried, and then he was silent, and there -ensued a confused and uncomfortable pause. - -“Yes, Sir,” said Harry. He had looked his chief in the face all this -time; but now he avoided the other’s eye, “that is just how it stands. I -told you it was not my fault. I never thought of such a thing. It -never,” he said, putting out his hand to a bundle of papers upon the -table by which he was standing, and turning them vaguely over and over, -“it never--happened to me before.” - -When the Vice-Consul looked at him standing there, with that look of -half-astonished simplicity on his face, and those artless words on his -lips, it was all he could do to keep in an outburst of laughter. He -thought he had never come in contact with so simple-minded, and candid, -and honourable a fellow. He was startled and alarmed, and made uneasy by -his confession; but yet he had the greatest desire to laugh. Yet why -should he laugh? it was serious enough; his lively mind jumped to the -possibility that his Rita might prefer this young stranger to himself. -It would be an extraordinary choice, he could not but think; but yet, -alas! that was how things often were in this strange world. A girl would -prefer a man she had seen three or four times in a ball-room, to the -father whose very existence she was; and nobody would be surprised at -it; it was the course of nature; it was the way of the world. This idea -chilled and alarmed him to the bottom of his heart; but yet he could -hardly help laughing at Harry and his perturbed air. “I never thought of -such a thing--it never happened before.” The Consul was almost too much -amused to take in the seriousness of the event. - -“I presume you have said nothing to her,” he said at last, looking -portentously serious by reason of the inclination to untimely mirth, -which he had to subdue. - -“That is just the thing,” cried Harry, rousing up from his bashful -pre-occupation. “No, I have not spoken--what you would call speaking; -but on Monday night I just dropped a word----” - -“Good Lord!” cried the Vice-Consul. He had no longer any inclination to -laugh; what he was disposed to do was to take the young fellow by the -throat. - -“You can’t be more frightened than I was,” said Harry, ingenuously. “It -was by that I found out. Of course I knew I admired--_her_ more than -anybody I had ever seen; but I had no more notion how far it had -gone---- and then like a fool I began to speak of going home to England, -and how I was sure I could take her all safe if she would go with me. -That was all: I assure you that was all,” cried Harry, discomposed by -Mr. Bonamy’s look and manner. He was alarmed by this look: the -Vice-Consul had risen up, trembling with wrath. - -“I would like to know,” he cried, “what more you could have said!--what -more could you wish to say? And this is what you call love! To betray my -child; to propose death to her--death! Oh, boy, boy, do you know what -you are doing in your folly and simplicity; beguiling her to her death, -and me to---- Good God! why should I always be such a fool? Why did I -have this fellow here?” - -“You are judging me too harshly, Sir,” cried Harry; “you think it was a -great deal worse than really happened. She never took any notice of it; -it hadn’t the least meaning to her. She asked me did I know -something--some physic I suppose,” Harry said, in a kind of parenthesis, -with disdain--“that would make it safe. That was all she thought of it; -but as for me, as soon as I had said it I came to myself. I’ve had a -dreadful time of it since,” he added once more, with that air of -downright sincerity and solemnity which made the Vice-Consul wish to -smile. “I’ve turned over every kind of plan in my mind. Sometimes I’ve -thought of going right away; but that seemed hard, too, when I had just -got settled here. And at the last the right thing seemed just to come -and tell you. Of course I put myself in your hands. I’ll do whatever -you think it proper I should do: give up the office; go away from the -town; anything you please. I don’t want to leave you--or her,” cried -Harry. “God knows! you have been so kind to me!” - -And then the Vice-Consul, hearing the young fellow’s voice falter, and -seeing that he kept his eyes down to conceal the water that had got into -them, felt a little knot in his throat too, and was melted in spite of -himself. - -“Oliver,” he said, “I don’t want to be hard upon you. You said she took -no notice--that is just like her; she is no coquette, my girl; she is -very innocent. I daresay it never occurred to her that you meant -anything.” - -“I don’t think it did, Sir,” Harry said eagerly. Of course he had no -clue to Rita’s retirement to her own room, or the amused consideration -she gave to the subject there. - -“I don’t want to be hard upon you,” Mr. Bonamy repeated, “if that is the -case. Answer me one more thing, Oliver, and answer it on your honour. -Have you any reason to think (that I should have to put such a -question?) that if you had spoken out more plainly, she---- Heavens! I -can’t put it into words.” - -“How could I,” cried Harry, almost provoked, “have reason to think -anything about it, when I never even suspected myself? It was that word -that opened my eyes.” - -And then there was another pause. Harry stood turning over and over that -bundle of papers. He looked at them as if he thought they contained some -secret of state. He took them in his hand as if anxious to know how many -ounces they weighed. His face wore a look of the gravest stolid -seriousness. He had now withdrawn from the consideration of his duty, or -what he ought to do, and put it into another person’s hands. He was -freed of the responsibility, and he had only to wait now to see what he -should be told to do. - -Then once more a sense of the humour of the situation intruded upon its -seriousness in the Vice-Consul’s eyes. His anger and alarm were quenched -in a sense of the absolute simplicity and honesty of the culprit, and a -hope that no harm had been done. Mr. Bonamy began to breathe freely -again, even to smile. - -“Sit down,” he said, “and let us talk this over. I don’t blame you, -Oliver. I can understand that you were not seriously to blame; and, if -no harm is done--I suppose you will promise me that it shall not occur -again.” - -“Well, Sir,” said Harry, “that is just what I should like to be able to -do; but seeing I was such a fool as to do it once, how can I tell that I -may not be a greater fool again? especially as then I did not know -anything about it, whereas I know all about it now.” - -“That is just the reason,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Now you are on your guard, -and you will know when to be watchful. I can’t give you permission to -make love to--my daughter, Oliver. I suppose you did not expect I -could?” - -“Oh, no,” cried Harry, eagerly; “not in the least. I could not, of -course, even if you did, for I have no money. I could no more marry than -I could fly.” - -“Marry!” cried the Vice-Consul. The young man said the word in the most -matter-of-fact way, but it took away the other’s breath. “Do you know -what you are doing?” he cried; “you are putting a knife to my throat. -Marry! That means that if you could you would break up this home of mine -in which you confess you have been received so kindly. You would rob me -of all I have. You would take from me everything that makes life -precious. For what, young man, for what? Because you admire a pretty -face! You don’t know any more of her--I am not sure that you are able to -appreciate any more of her. But she is everything in the world--she is -all that makes life worth living--to me.” - -Harry threw down the bundle of papers and looked across the table with -the intensest astonishment. “Do you mean,” he said, “that you don’t -intend her ever to be married at all? Is nobody to have the chance? Is -she always to be kept up in one place, and never to settle, nor have her -own choice and her own life?” - -Mr. Bonamy felt as if he were being stoned--one solid, heavy fact tossed -at him after another; and looked at his questioner with a sort of gasp -between the blows. He faltered after a while, “She is very young. She -has everything that her heart can desire. Why should she not be content, -at least for years to come, in her father’s house?” - -“I always understood, Sir,” said Harry, with his usual -straightforwardness, “that the right thing for girls was to marry when -they were young, and that parents were supposed to wish it.” - -“To scheme for it, perhaps?” said Mr. Bonamy, furiously, “and put out -all sorts of snares to catch young fellows like you--eh? To lay traps -for you, and lead you on, and give you encouragement and opportunity, -and so forth? Perhaps you think that’s what I’ve been doing--eh? God -forgive me,” he said, “in my day I’ve said that sort of thing, and -believed it myself; I’ve sneered and scoffed like the rest--and now I’ve -got my punishment. You think there is nothing so fine for a girl as to -get married--eh?” - -Harry was struck with consternation by this attack; but yet, feeling -that he had right on his side, he stood his ground. “I am not saying -anything about _you_, Sir,” he said, “but surely it is thought the best -thing that could happen. I’ve always heard it. Fathers and mothers, you -know, Sir, don’t generally live as long as their children--at least, -that is what is supposed--and they like to see their daughters settled, -don’t they, before they die?” - -This was what the French would call a brutal speech--for, in the first -place, it was true; and then Mr. Bonamy was at an age which seemed old -to Harry, but rather young than otherwise to himself, and he was not at -all pleased to have it taken for granted that he must shortly be going -to die. Yes, of course Rita would outlive him, would live long, he -hoped, after him; but still the idea that there was any need to marry -her off in haste, lest he might die and leave her before she -was--settled, was most repugnant to him; it went to his heart, wounding -him with a possibility which he had no desire to think of; and it made -him hot and angry, as if it had been a personal insult. No one likes to -be told that he has come to a period of life at which it is more likely -than otherwise that he will shortly die, and that it is very necessary -to take precautions against that event. It was all he could do to keep -from bursting out upon Harry, crushing him with a bitter rejoinder. He -to address his benefactor thus! He to speak in this tone to the man who -had received him when nobody else would, who had lifted him out of all -the difficulties of a stranger, and opened not only his office, which -gave him bread, but his house, which gave him friends, and position, and -everything a young man could wish for! These words were rushing to Mr. -Bonamy’s lips, when fortunately a sense of his personal dignity, and of -the impropriety of any such demonstration, came in and stopped him. -Harry’s speech, after all, was good common sense, just the sort of thing -that everybody says; the world was on that side of the question. Perhaps -prudence and the foresight which love itself ought to possess was on -that side too. So he was silent, repressing the first instinct of reply. -When he was able to do it, he answered with as much self-possession as -he could muster. - -“I admire your prudence, Mr. Oliver. I hope you will always see your own -duties with the same clearness which you display about those of others; -and I have no doubt you are quite right; but it is a question which I -don’t care to discuss. Let me say, before we finish this talk, that I -think you have behaved very honourably, and as a gentleman should; and I -quite accept your reason for coming to my house much less frequently. I -will make your excuses to my daughter; and nothing that has passed need -make any difference in our official relations,” he added, looking up -with a smile that was sharp and cold, not like his usual sunshine, “in -that respect there is no possible reason why everything should not go on -as before.” - -“Very well, Sir,” said Harry, getting up with some confusion. The -conversation had been going on so long, and so much less indignation -than he expected had been in the Vice-Consul’s air at the beginning, -that this sudden sentence confounded him. He was quite ready, when he -began, to be taken at his word; but somehow he was not now so ready; the -bitterness had seemed to be past, and he had hoped that the indulgent -and fatherly friend before him would have found some way by which he -should still be permitted to come and go. But now all at once Harry -found himself, in his own words, “shut up,” and had nothing to do but to -stumble to his feet as quickly as he could, and take himself off, much -subdued and astonished, to his desk in the outer office--where he gave -his mind to his business, not too clearly, but with as much devotion as -was practicable, for the rest of the day. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -RITA’S OPINION. - - -These two men, however, though they were disposed to think themselves -the chief, or, indeed, only persons concerned, were by no means the -masters of the situation, as they supposed. Rita took Harry’s absence -from her drawing-room quite lightly at first, so lightly that her -father’s mind was entirely relieved. He had been afraid that her -astonishment, if nothing else, would have been great, and that she would -have asked him a hundred questions--questions which it might have given -him some trouble to answer. But she took it quite quietly, and said -nothing about it for a week or two, till the Vice-Consul was of opinion -that all danger was passed. About this time, however, Rita, by one of -those accidents which occur perversely to heighten the embarrassment of -every domestic crisis, met Harry suddenly on one of her walks, coming -upon him round a corner without any warning to either party. Her usual -attendant, Benedetta, was with the young lady, who looked up brightly -with surprise and pleasure, and held out her hand. - -“What has become of you all this time?” she said, in her kind, soft -voice. - -On Harry, for his part, the effect of so suddenly coming in sight of -her, and of her frank accost, was too remarkable to escape Rita’s quick -eye. He fell backward a step, swerved from his course, gave a glance -round him, as if in search of some way of escape, then, seeing none, -took her offered hand gingerly, just touched and dropped it, his face -flushing crimson, his voice faltering. - -“Oh, I am very well, thank you,” was the answer he made; and then stood -and stared at her for a moment, and, without replying to any of her -questions, went on again confusedly, leaving her standing still gazing -after him in a state of mingled dismay and consternation. - -“What can have happened to him?” Rita said to herself, unconsciously -aloud: and “I think the gentleman must be mad,” said tranquilly the -good Benedetta, who thought the English were all a little insane, and -that it was nothing much out of the way. But that evening when dinner -was over it was the Vice-Consul’s turn to be undeceived. - -“Papa,” said Rita, suddenly (she had let him have his dinner first, -which showed consideration), “what is the matter with Mr. Oliver?” - -The Vice-Consul was like a ship at sea, into whose innocent hulk a -sudden broadside is poured without any sort of warning; he dipped his -sails, so to speak, all his timbers thrilled and shivered. He had not -been in the least prepared for any such assault. - -“Oliver?” he said, trying to put on an exaggerated look of innocence, -“Oliver? what’s the matter with him? What should be the matter with him? -He is all right for anything I know.” - -“He is not all right,” said Rita; “he has not been here for a fortnight, -he who used to come almost every night; and you should have seen him -when I met him to-day; I thought he would have run away. He tried it, I -declare. He looked all round to see if he could not make his escape, -and when I cried out, ‘What has become of you?’ he said, ‘Very well, -thank you!’ Was there ever anything so absurd? I like him for that, he -is so English, and so absurd.” - -“I don’t see anything absurd about it,” said the Vice-Consul, with a -very grave countenance. - -“Don’t you, papa? you are growing dull, you have been very dull for some -time back. Since Mr. Oliver ran away! Perhaps it is because of that. -Perhaps it is the same thing that has affected you both.” - -“You pay me a high compliment,” said Mr. Bonamy, nettled, “to think that -my dulness, as you are pleased to call it, should result from the -withdrawal of Oliver; he is not such a shining light.” - -“No, he is not a shining light,” said Rita, “he is perhaps just a little -dull himself; that is why I like him. He never tries to say clever -things, he is never a bit brilliant, he never even pretends to -understand when he doesn’t understand, but looks at you with nice, -round, wide-open, surprised sort of eyes. That is just what I like him -for. He is always himself.” - -To this the Vice-Consul made no reply, but, hoping to change the -conversation, said, “By the way, I’ve got you that book you were -talking so much about; nobody had it here, so I sent to Paris----” - -“That was very good of you, papa; but I can’t let you run off like that. -Let us finish one subject before we begin another. What is the matter -with Mr. Oliver? Why did he come every night, and then leave off coming -all at once?” - -“What a fool I was to think I was going to be let off so easily!” Mr. -Bonamy breathed to himself. “My dear Rita,” he said, “I don’t see why -you should be so anxious about Oliver. It was a mistake having him here -so much at the first.” - -“Why was it a mistake? you never thought it was a mistake till now. What -has happened? I am more and more puzzled with every word you say. Papa!” -cried Rita, stamping her little foot on the floor, “don’t trifle with -me, for I am determined to find it out.” - -“Then you must just find it out your own way,” cried the Vice-Consul, -angry with the anger of impotence; for he knew very well he could not -resist her, and that it was only a matter of minutes how long she would -take to find the necessary clue. - -“Do you mean to say you will not tell me?” cried Rita, with wondering, -wide-open eyes. - -“My dear child,” said the unfortunate Vice-Consul, “you are making it of -far too much importance. What does it matter about this young fellow one -way or the other? He came, he has gone; we ought not, perhaps, to have -given him so readily the run of the house.” - -“Has anything--wrong--been found out about him, papa?” - -“Bless my soul, no! nothing wrong; on the contrary!” cried poor Mr. -Bonamy; “for I won’t take away a man’s character behind his back--he has -behaved like a gentleman, quite like a gentleman; about that there is -not a word to say.” - -“Of course,” said Rita, “he would behave like a gentleman, for he is a -gentleman; but on what pretext, then, have you banished him from the -house?” - -“Rita,” cried her father, “I wish you would not talk of things you don’t -understand! Am I the sort of man to banish a young fellow from my house? -If you _will_ know, it was he that did it himself.” - -Rita opened her eyes wider than ever. She laughed, though a little -angry colour came to her face. - -“I suppose it was he, then, who disapproved of us?” she said. - -What was the Vice-Consul to do? - -“That is nonsense,” said he, “he neither disapproved of us, nor did I -disapprove of him; but there might be other reasons. We thought, both of -us, both he and I, that it was as well--he should not come--so -often--for a time, at least.” - -“So often? but he never comes at all,” cried the inquisitive girl, “and -when I met him he wanted to run away. Don’t you see all this is absurd, -papa? If you want me to believe you, tell me the right reason. I will -not be satisfied till you tell me the right reason. Do you think I can -be taken in with pretences of that sort?” - -“Rita, you annoy me very much, you distress me. I don’t know why you -should drive me into a corner like this,” the Vice-Consul said -piteously. - -“But I want to drive you into a corner, I must drive you into a corner; -for I insist now upon knowing what it is. I might have let it pass -before, but now I insist upon it, you must tell me, papa.” - -The poor man gave a deep sigh. - -“You take a very unfair advantage,” he said; “you compel me to betray -poor Oliver and to distress myself. And I warn you that it will make you -blush, that you will feel very uncomfortable.” - -“I don’t mind blushing,” Rita said; and as she spoke a sudden suffusion -of heat and colour came all over her. She blushed from the crown of her -head to the soles of her feet. It was a strange sensation, but it was -not altogether disagreeable. The girl had as little idea of any painful -or shameful occasion for blushing as if she had been a baby; and she met -the father’s eyes quite steadily all the same. - -“I never saw a creature so pertinacious,” said poor Mr. Bonamy. “Well, -then, if you must know. It is because of you that young Oliver is not -coming here any more.” - -“Because of me!” She was too much astonished to blush now, and then she -had already had her blush out. - -“Just because of you. He has been so silly as to fall in love with you, -and feeling that it would be dishonourable to me to continue to come -here, this being the case, he has explained it all and withdrawn. There -is now the short and the long of it, Rita. You have no right to say a -word against poor Oliver. He has paid you, as people say, the highest -compliment a man can pay a woman, and he has acted in the most -honourable way to me; feeling that he cannot be quite sure of not -betraying himself if he continues to come, he has ceased to come. He -would have left the place altogether if I had asked such a sacrifice of -him. He has behaved in the most gentlemanly, honourable way. He tells me -he did say something, but he did not know whether you understood it or -not.” - -Rita was struck dumb. She sat and gazed at her father silently while he -spoke, too curious and strongly interested even to be abashed by this -strange news. She blushed no more. Having paid that one tribute of -startled maidenliness to the new revelation, she was too much impressed -and overwhelmed by it for any lighter feeling. She sat in an attitude of -the most absorbed attention, her eyes fixed upon her father’s face, her -lips a little apart, the breath coming quickly. She was astonished, yet -not so much astonished as overawed, penetrated by the news. When her -father ceased speaking, she continued the same rapt aspect of attention. -He thought she would have been shame-faced, blushing, shy of it, unable -to look him in the face; but he was not prepared for this curious, -absorbed interest. By and by she repeated to herself softly, “So silly -as to fall _in_--_love_:--with me--would have left the place -altogether.” Then she made a pause, and, putting her hands softly -together, said, with a sigh of satisfaction at having found out one -problem: “Then that was what he meant!” - -“What was what he meant? He told me you took no notice; he thought you -hadn’t understood what he said.” - -“I did not understand it,” said Rita, softly, “I only wondered. It was -about going to England----” - -“Rita, Rita! you would not, for a new lover, a man you scarcely know, a -being quite untried--you would not break my heart and go and risk your -life--your life that is above all things precious to me?” - -Rita scarcely seemed to hear this interpolation--this interruption of -her thoughts. - -“That there would be no danger, he said, and he would take care--he -would take care--that was not much; but I did wonder. I will tell you -the truth, papa. I had a great anxiety to know what he meant.” - -“Young idiot!” her father said, with hotly-rising wrath, “he meant -nothing--nothing, my love! only a brag that he could do more, and know -better--a boy, an uninstructed fool--than those who have watched over -you all your life.” - -Even this made no impression upon the girl. “It is curious,” she said, -still to herself, “very curious--quite different from--the other way. I -suppose this is the English way? Benedetta always says the English are -half mad. I suppose instead of asking about the _dot_, and that kind of -thing, you know, papa--I suppose this is the English way?” - -“It is the foolish way,” cried the father. “Come, it is nothing to you, -Rita. You don’t mean to say--no, no, my darling; I know better--you -don’t mean to make me believe that you, so clever as you are, and -knowing so much, could think twice about any notion that came into the -noddle of such an empty-headed young man.” - -“Is he empty-headed?” said Rita, reflectively. “He does not know much, -that is quite true; he is not a bit clever; but I think it is a little -unjust to call him empty-headed. He was always just himself; he never -pretended to anything else. Sometimes he understood--very often he -didn’t; but he never pretended, papa. Don’t you think it is a little -hard upon him?” she said, turning round upon her father suddenly, and -fixing him with her large, serious, impartial eyes. “Don’t you think it -is hard to take advantage of what he has said himself, and turn him out -like this?” - -“I have not turned him out. Rita, this is mere folly. I will not have -you led away by your feelings. If any man were to kill me, I believe you -would say he didn’t mean it, poor fellow, it would be hard upon him to -hang him. Come, child, let us be done with this.” - -“But, papa,” said Rita, “there is no evidence against him but his own -confession. I have often heard you say that one should not take -advantage of that. Kill you--who wants to kill you? There could not be a -more different question. I am not led away by my feelings. I have no -feelings but right and justice. I don’t think you ought to have taken -that advantage of him. It must be very hard upon him, papa, to shut him -out. Think! he will have nowhere else to go to. I dare say he spends -his evenings in the cafés. He can’t know what to do with himself at -nights.” - -“As if I had anything to do with his entertainment in the evening! I -wish to heaven he had never set foot within my house!” - -“Ah! but that is past praying for. I don’t see why you should wish such -a thing; but still, if you do wish it, it is a pity, for it is too late. -He _has_ set foot within your house, and we have a responsibility about -him. We have a responsibility,” said Rita, very gravely shaking her -head. “He is young, and he is very simple-minded, and he might, as you -are always saying, take a wrong turn; and then whose fault would it be?” - -“Not mine,” cried the persecuted man, “certainly not mine--that I’ll -swear to. Am I the fellow’s keeper? Rita, for heaven’s sake be done with -all that nonsense. If you can talk of nothing more sensible, you had -much better go to bed.” - -“Yes,” said Rita, calmly, going on with her argument, “you are his -guardian in a kind of way, papa. It was you that took him up first. You -did it of your own free will, nobody persuaded you. You settled him -here, and you opened your doors to him, and said, Come on Sunday, come -as often as you please. Do you think you are justified in casting him -away now, as if it was of no importance? never thinking where he will go -instead, or if he has anywhere else to go to? Do you think you are -justified? for no other reason than that you think he might perhaps do -or say something you would not like? I do not.” - -“Then you think, I suppose, that I ought to have him back and beg his -pardon, and tell him he is quite free to make love to my daughter if he -likes? Bless my soul! why should I interfere with such a pretty -amusement? That’s what you think. Rita, don’t sit there, my dear, -talking nonsense: say no more about this young fool, but go to bed.” - -“Papa, I am sorry to see you are so deaf to sound argument,” said Rita, -with judicial composure; “you always bring in the personal question, as -if that had anything to do with it. On the face of it, to deprive a -stranger of the benefits you have been heaping upon him, and leave him -in a moment to his own resources, all because you are afraid of a -distant and unlikely thing he thinks he wants to do, is dreadfully -unjustifiable; my dear papa,” said Rita, looking down from the heights -of youthful superiority, “I never expected to find you inaccessible to -reason, especially on such an important point as this.” - -“Inaccessible to fiddlesticks,” the Vice-Consul said; but he was -entirely shaken in his conviction of having done what was right and -kind, both to one party and the other. He got up and walked about the -room. He was a man who wanted moral support; he wanted to be approved -of, and to feel that the opinion of those around him went with his. And -especially he had learned to prop himself up by Rita’s opinion. He was -always uneasy when she differed from him. Even in this matter, which -concerned herself, and in which her judgment might justly be doubted, he -was not comfortable. He was unfortunately too accessible to reason, so -that nothing could be more unjust than this reproach. “Go to bed, my -love; go to bed,” he said, faintly. “It is getting very late; another -time we can talk of this.” - -“Then do you think, papa,” said Rita, still magisterial, “that it is -right to postpone a matter which concerns other people’s comfort to -another time?” - -“Don’t worry me to death,” said Mr. Bonamy, stretching out his hands -with a half-despairing appeal. “I never thought I was going to be led -into such a discussion--don’t worry me to death!” - -But she showed no signs of mercy, and there is no telling what might -have happened to Her Majesty’s humble representative had he not been -called away at this moment to receive a messenger with despatches from -the Consulate-General and important instructions. Mr. Bonamy hurried -away with a sigh of thankfulness; never was culprit suddenly delivered -from the bar more glad of his escape. He knew, indeed, that it was only -for a time: but yet even for a time it was well to get out of her hands. -At least he could collect materials for his defence. - -Rita, for her part, after sitting for some time waiting for her father’s -return, and sharpening up various arguments for his complete -discomfiture, got tired, and made up her mind to take his advice and go -to bed. But she had a great deal too much to think about to have any -desire to go to sleep. When she had sent Benedetta away she sat by her -window in her white dressing-gown, with her hair about her shoulders, a -romantic little figure, and felt a little like Juliet. She had never -felt like Juliet before. She had, even with the flippancy of her age, -been disposed to think of Juliet as of a very forward and bold young -woman. People who have been accustomed to hear of marriage as a matter -of convenience, so much _dot_, so many advantages, and who have even -been negotiated for in this way, are apt to think but poorly of that -ideal impersonation of youthful passion. But now that Romeo had appeared -on the scene, Rita, at the window, thought upon Juliet with a little -secret wonder, and awe, and pleasure. Romeo--well, there is no evidence -that Romeo was clever. He was only one of the gallants of the period, -one of the swash-bucklers who sometimes talk just as badly as their -kind, though often they forget themselves and talk Shakespeare. There -was nothing extraordinary about him till love and the poet got hold of -him, and put divine words into his mouth. Very likely that gay Mercutio -was the cleverest of the two. Sitting thus at her window, Rita all at -once was sensible of a figure on the pavement looking up at the house -from the opposite side of the street. There was nothing but a little -night-light burning on a table in the corner, nothing to betray her -figure where she sat. And nothing could be more common-place and absurd -than that Harry should come there and stare at the windows. He was not -by any means in the habit of doing so; but yet when he was out, taking -his forlorn walk, he would allow himself to take that turn through the -street in which the Consulate was, and fix a wistful eye upon it for a -moment. When Rita saw him she darted back with a movement of fright and -wonder, and mirth and shyness, all in one; and sat out of sight for a -few moments, panting, blushing, with the same overwhelming flush of -sudden warmth which had come over her for the first time when her father -spoke to her. Then, in the dark and the silence, she gave vent to a -little low laugh, at which she was frightened when she heard it, and -became suddenly as solemn and serious as an old picture. Then she -returned shyly to the corner of the window, peeping, though she ought to -have known that it was impossible he could see her. The figure opposite -was in the act of passing on; it gave a long look back as it went slowly -away, lingering as if reluctant to be out of her neighbourhood. Rita -drew back this time with a kind of awe. She knew he would have thought -no more of climbing the garden wall, however high it had been--if there -had been a garden wall and a balcony, and she out upon it discoursing to -the moon--than Romeo did. “But there is the difference,” Rita said to -herself; “he may be in love with me, but I am not in love with him. I -would never stand out there and sigh Romeo, Romeo. No,” she went on, -with a little shriek of a laugh, “not Romeo. Oh, Isaac, Isaac, wherefore -art thou Isaac? That is too ridiculous; it is all too ridiculous. I -don’t wonder at what Benedetta says, that the English are half-mad.” - -And then she sat a long time in the dark, and thought, and thought. It -was all very new and very strange. It roused her lively faculties with -the pleasure of a novel sensation. She had taken her proposals of -marriage with sedate contempt, and announced authoritatively to her -father on each occasion that she had no intention of ever marrying, and -that she liked him much better than any other man in the world, an -assurance which the poor Vice-Consul took great comfort in, though it -was not possible that any man in his senses could accept it as a matter -of serious faith. But now Rita could not deny to herself that this -strange new bewildering sensation was a pleasant one. Her former -suitors would no doubt have gladly adopted it had it been thought that -such an easy mode of love-making would have been permitted; but in their -cases it would not have moved the foolish girl. To see somebody standing -silent on the other side of the street, doing nothing to call her -attention, not wishing to be noticed, doing it only for a little comfort -to himself, was entirely different. That was the English way, she -thought with awe. To be able to give love up for the sake of honour, and -yet to have it so much at heart as to be driven to come and look at the -house in which the beloved object lived, standing about alone in a cold -night--Rita’s whole heart was penetrated by the sincerity, the modesty, -the self-restraint, yet self-abandonment, which were English, only -English, nothing else. It was not in the least a cold night: Harry -outside felt it to be warm and genial: but there was a cool little -night-breeze lifting the curtains, and she strove to call it cold to -heighten the effect. This was how the Vice-Consul had mismanaged -matters. He was not a happy man as he read his despatches; but he had no -idea of the mischief which was going on under cover of the night. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -A LOVER’S ORDEAL. - - -Rita said nothing more to her father on this subject for a day or two, -and the poor man, deceived once more, began to believe that it had made -little impression upon her, and was to be allowed to pass as of no -particular importance. He had even begun to congratulate himself on the -beneficial effects of his system of training, and the knowledge of the -world which her early initiation into life had given her. “Had I brought -Rita up as most girls are brought up,” he said to himself; “had she been -fresh from a convent, for instance, like some of her friends, or shut up -indoors as Italian girls are, her head would have been turned by the -first mention of a lover. But she has seen a great deal, though she is -so young. In our position she could not help seeing a great deal. She -knows how to discriminate, and can judge what is what. What a good thing -that I did not follow the advice of all these ladies, but was bold -enough to trust to my girl’s innocence and bring her up my own way!” -Thus artlessly did the Vice-Consul console himself. And his mind was a -great deal easier; for before he was always nervous lest she should -question him about Harry, and afraid of betraying himself, even afraid -of letting Rita perceive that there was something to betray. Now that he -had made a clean breast and got it over, his mind was relieved, and he -felt that he could carry his head as high as usual, and need not be -afraid to look any girl in the face. For the first day he rejoiced with -trembling, but after that had passed began to feel that he had really -secured his footing, and might take comfort that the danger was over. -Poor Vice-Consul! He had but just allowed this sensation of pleasure to -enter his mind when Rita, looking up at him suddenly from a book in -which she had all the air of being completely absorbed, addressed him -suddenly as follows-- - -“Papa! I have been thinking over what you told me the other day--What -is the matter?” she added, interrupting herself. - -“Nothing, nothing,” said poor Mr. Bonamy, faintly. He had been lying -back in a very comfortable chair, whiffing gently at intervals a mild -cigarette, and giving himself up to the comfort, the ease of being done -with a subject in which he had foreseen trouble. When his daughter began -to speak, a presentiment of danger awoke in him, and he started up in -his chair when she had said these words. “Nothing, nothing,” he -repeated, letting himself drop again, but alas, with what different -feelings; with the languor of a conflict foreseen, in which he knew he -should be worsted. “What have you been thinking about, Rita?” - -“About what you told me the other day. Of course it was not just an -ordinary thing that one could think nothing more about. Poor Mr. Oliver! -I think he has been badly treated. I want you to tell him just to come -as usual. He must be on his guard, you know; but in any case he would be -on his guard after speaking to you. He must not suppose that I know -anything about it.” - -“But, my dear,” said the Vice-Consul, with a troubled face, “I don’t -think that would do at all; he would think that he had my permission -to--to pay you his addresses, as people used to say?” - -“What are addresses?” said Rita, with much appearance of innocence. “You -must tell him, of course, that there is to be nothing of that kind; but -only just that he is to come as before. I don’t see that it need do him -any harm--I mean any further harm,” said the girl, correcting herself. -She spoke with unusual airiness and carelessness, so lightly indeed that -her indifference had the aspect of being somewhat studied. - -“Him--harm! that was not the question,” the perplexed father said. - -“I hope you don’t mean to infer that it would do _me_ any harm?” said -Rita, turning upon him with a smile of superb disdain. She even laughed -a little at the folly of the idea, opening and shutting a fan which she -held in her hand. “That would be too ridiculous--too ridiculous,” she -said. - -“But, my dear child, you are young and inexperienced, and--” - -“Don’t insult me, please, papa,” she said, fanning herself. If she had -been fifty she could not have looked more superior to any such -temptation. “And, on the other hand,” she added, “I don’t see why poor -Mr. Oliver should be punished, positively punished for liking me. It is -not a sin to like me. Of course he must learn to keep it to himself; it -will be a good lesson in self-control--which everybody is the better -for,” said this young oracle, “and especially, as I have always heard, -young men.” - -This wisdom took away the Vice-Consul’s breath. “That is very true:” he -said “but I am not at all sure that this is a safe way of teaching it. I -think, if it is the same to you, Rita--” - -“But it is not the same to me,” she cried, impatiently. “If you will not -set poor Mr. Oliver right and do him justice, I think I will go and pay -that visit my aunt Ersilia always wants me to make her. You said -yourself I must go one day or other. I will go now.” - -Now if there was one thing more than another which Mr. Bonamy was afraid -of, it was this visit to her aunt Ersilia, her mother’s Italian sister, -with which she threatened him from time to time. He said hurriedly, “I -don’t think this is a good time for going further south, Rita. Of -course, if you wish it so much, I will gladly remove the embargo on -poor Oliver, who is a very good, honest sort of fellow; but I can’t have -him tormented, poor boy--and you must promise to be very distant with -him, which is the kindest thing you can do.” - -“But not too distant, papa,” said Rita; “for I think it a great deal -better that he should suppose I do not know. Far better. I will behave -to him just as usual. I will withdraw gradually, bit by bit, that he may -not feel too much difference. Indeed, unless he is different to me, I -don’t see why I should be different to him. Of course he will be on his -guard. You see he _knows now_. Naturally he will be more careful. He -will understand that if you let him come back he is upon his honour. So, -on the whole, I will make very little difference. I think it is far -better that everything should have the look of being just the same as -before.” - -With this Mr. Bonamy was obliged to be satisfied. He had known very well -when the discussion began that Rita’s will, whatever it might be, was -the thing that would be done. He had in his own mind a great many -troubled reflections, considering how he was to do it, so as not to -excite false hopes or vain expectations in the young man’s mind; but it -was, from the moment when she declared her sovereign will, a foregone -conclusion. He had not resolved the question how it was to be done, up -to the time he went into his office in the morning, and then thought it -best to leave it to chance and the inspiration of the moment. When he -sent for Harry to speak with him he had still but a very faint idea what -to say. The young man came in looking somewhat dull and depressed, as he -did always now, and no longer expectant of anything better, as he had -been at the first. It was a moment of leisure, and the Vice-Consul had -the air of a man with something disagreeable rather than something -pleasant to say. His look was artificial, and the smile which adorned -his face was forced and uncomfortable. - -“Come in, Oliver, come in,” he said, with an air of affected geniality. -Harry thought he was going to receive his dismissal; he did not think -that anything less could give his kind and friendly patron an aspect so -little natural. “Sit down,” said the Vice-Consul, “I have something to -say before business begins this afternoon. Oliver, I have been going -through quite a passage of arms on your account.” - -“On my account?” said Harry, feeling as if his heart stopped beating; he -thought within himself, that this passage of arms must have been with -some of the authorities of the F. O., who perhaps had been stirred up to -ask what a stranger, without recommendations, was doing there. It seemed -to him that the next thing which would be said must be, “I have no -further occasion for your services,” and braced himself for these words. - -“Don’t be frightened; yes, you look frightened,” said Mr. Bonamy, still -with that false geniality, “but no harm has come of it. You met--my -daughter--the other day.” - -“Yes.” Harry’s heart re-commenced beating, and went so fast that it -almost choked him. “It was an accident, Sir; I did not see Miss Bonamy -till I was close upon her, I could not escape.” - -“Yes, she told me. And she asked what had become of you, and you -answered ‘Very well, thank you!’ You will allow that was strange. No -doubt she had been much puzzled by your disappearance before, and she -assailed me directly what was the meaning of it? I had to say all sorts -of things, that you were too busy to come, that you were otherwise -engaged, and I don’t know what; but the short and the long of it is, -Oliver, that, if you want to keep her from knowing all about it, you -must begin to come back again. Things cannot go on as they are now -without arousing her suspicions. This is her night, you know; you must -look in for an hour. Of course I don’t want to enter into explanations -with her,” said the Vice-Consul, becoming more at ease now he had made -out his statement, and done it, he thought with some complacence, very -cleverly. “You must really, by way of supporting what I have been -obliged to say, look in to-night.” - -Harry’s heart was making up tremendously now for its momentary pause. He -felt as if it must be audible all over the house. A flush of warmth went -over him. He spoke with little breaks in his voice, so much excited and -disturbed was he. - -“If you--have no objections, Sir. It cannot be but--a favour to me.” - -“That’s a good fellow,” cried the Vice-Consul relieved. “I was afraid -you would tell me it was too painful, and leave me in the lurch.” - -“If I did that, Sir,” said Harry, “I should be a worthless creature -indeed, however much it might cost me; but this--this---- If you have -no objections, Sir--you can’t have any doubt that I----” - -Here he stopped, not knowing what to say more. - -“You must understand, Oliver,” said Mr. Bonamy, gravely, “that if I have -no objections it is because I don’t want to enter into explanations with -Rita; and then I have missed you, I would never deny that. But you must -not suppose, because of this, that I mean you, you know, to depart from -our--bargain, or to do anything to change the position. In short, I -don’t intend, Oliver, that you should take advantage of the change -to--in short, to----” - -This was not very explanatory, but Harry hastened to reply as if it had -been the clearest statement in the world. - -“You may be sure I will take no advantage of the change,” he said. - -“Well, that is just what I expected from you,” said the Vice-Consul, -falling into his natural tone; “but, my dear fellow,” he added, with a -little alarm, “I must be sure that you can depend upon yourself. You -told me you were afraid you would betray your feelings if you continued -to come; you told me even that you had done so, or almost done so----” - -“Ah, Sir,” cried Harry, “that was when I found myself out! I know -exactly all about it now, and I am on my guard.” - -“Bless me,” said the Vice-Consul, “that is exactly what----” here he -stopped short with the guiltiest look. He was just about to say--what -Rita said. - -“You need not have any fear on my account,” said Harry: and then he -paused a little, and added with feeling, “and I am proud that you have -confidence in me. I will do nothing to shake it; you may be sure of -that. I should be a poor creature indeed if my heart did not respond to -such trust.” - -This was a very fine speech for Harry. He was carried altogether beyond -himself by the emergency. These last lonely evenings had been wonderful -teachers for him. He had learned to read, he had learned to understand. -He had even learned many things more than reading and understanding in -these days of solitude. The thought of going back to her, to that little -world in which she reigned, was delightful to him, but he wondered what -change there would be in it to balance the strange change in his own -breast. It seemed to him that he was a new man, with deeper feelings -and an expanded mind. And she? Would she just be the same, and all the -things and people round her? Harry did not want her to be the least -different. He thought she was perfect, the most wonderful of all beings; -but he felt himself so much altered that he was excited by the thought -that she might be changed too. He went away from his audience not -knowing whether he walked on solid earth or air. Certainly he would not -take advantage; unquestionably he would be upright and honest, and bind -himself as with ropes rather than betray his kind friend’s confidence; -but with all this he was very much excited, and a glow of warmth and -hopefulness began to circulate in his veins. The new concession meant no -change in the circumstances; this the Vice-Consul had been anxious to -impress upon him; and he was equally anxious to assent, to assure Rita’s -father on the other hand that he expected nothing, scarcely desired -anything except this trust in him. But, nevertheless, it would be -impossible to deny that a something of hope, a trembling yet happy -expectation, had come into his heart. - -How carefully he dressed himself that night! Never in all his life had -he made so careful a toilette before. And Paolo, having heard what had -happened (which Harry, reticent as he was, could not keep from him), was -excited too, and came and sat by him while he dressed, and wanted to -help him, as if they had been two girls. Paolo ran out and bought him a -bouquet for his button-hole. He brought in a fresh bottle of -eau-de-Cologne. He was very anxious to lend him something to wear--his -studs, which were little cameos set in gold, or a ring, with a doubtful -gem in it, of which he was very proud, thinking it a genuine antique. -“It is not brilliant like a diamond,” said Paolo, “but it is art, which -is more precious, and pleases much to the Signorina. Take it, amico mio, -you have no ring, which is an absence that is felt; and the studs, that -will make your appearance so much more perfect--what you call finished.” -Harry rejected these aids to the effectiveness of his dress, but he took -great pains about his tie, and rebrushed his coat himself, and gave -particular attention to the arrangement of his hair. He said to himself, -as he walked along in the summer dusk, that all this was very foolish, -that he was not on his promotion, when it might have been wise to make -the best of all his advantages, that he was going only because he was -nobody, because the Vice-Consul was not afraid of him, and thought it -wiser to run the risk of him than to disturb Rita’s mind about any such -petty suitor. It was very much like giving him the crumbs from the -table, but he was willing to accept these, or anything. He went into the -lighted room with his heart beating. Several of the ladies who were -_habituées_ exclaimed on his entrance, and made haste to tell him that -they had thought he was gone altogether, and to ask where he had been. -Rita took no part in these questions, but she gave him her left hand as -a sign of friendship, and smiled and nodded to him without stopping her -conversation with somebody else. Indeed, she treated him as if there had -been no break in their intercourse, as though they had met yesterday and -were to meet again to-morrow. This pleased Harry, and yet it wrung his -heart. Was he of so little importance to her that she had not even -noticed his absence? But that could not be. He began to wonder whether -it was perhaps a good sign. She _had_ noticed his absence, speaking to -her father about it. Was it perhaps--? His heart began to beat again as -at first. But Rita took very little notice of him all the evening. She -was perfectly sweet and smiling, and when she did address him did it -with all her old friendliness; but Harry could not persuade himself that -she had remarked him and his careful tie, and his well-brushed curls at -all. - -After that there ensued a time of mingled torture and happiness, when -Rita played with the young man as a cat plays with a mouse. She was more -interested in him than she had ever been in any young man before. He was -a study to her of the most attractive kind. A young man who was in -love--not a young man who was wanting to marry, a species of which she -had seen several specimens--but one who was actually, really, warmly in -love--and with herself. She wanted to see how such a person behaved. It -was as good as a play to her. She would laugh to herself secretly, -thinking of it, so much amused was she; and it seemed to her almost a -duty to try him in every way, to see how far this love would carry him, -and how long he would manage to keep it under. It did not occur to Rita -that this was a somewhat cruel process, or that Harry was pledged in -honour to her father not to betray himself. The cat most likely has no -idea of cruelty in her play with the mouse. Sometimes Rita would take no -notice of him at all, neglecting all the wistful attention which poor -Harry felt it was within his bond to bestow so long as he looked for -nothing in return. For a whole evening she would not so much as look at -him; then would suddenly turn with her most cordial smile, with a few -words more sweet than he thought she had ever bestowed upon him before. -Sometimes she would call him to her side, and ply him with seductions -which poor Harry did not know how to resist; sometimes she would devote -all her efforts to the task of making him betray himself, tempting him -with all sorts of opportunities. But Harry stood fast. He had given his -promise, and nothing would make him break it. He wavered like a tree in -the wind, but he never yielded. Sometimes she made him think that she -was ready to listen to anything he might say, and another time would -take the first opportunity of showing him that he was nothing to her. It -was hard upon the mouse; yet we doubt whether he would have exchanged -this agitated existence for the most happy calm. He went to the -Consulate with a continued expectation, with his heart always beating -loudly, not knowing what he was to look for; but a more calm level of -kindness would not have given him those variations of feeling, that -dramatic interest in his life; so that, perhaps, there was not much harm -done, the tortured liking the play as much as the torturer. As for Rita -she was very much interested too; the pursuit amused her--it was a new -sensation. She wanted above all things to overcome his resolution, and -make him betray himself. But here her efforts were vain against the rock -of Harry’s invincibility. He would not, whatever she might do, break his -promise. He kept a watch upon himself which was not to be overcome. - -The Vice-Consul did not know what to make of the business altogether. It -gave him a great deal of thought. He watched the young man with a -jealous eye: but Harry met every scrutiny with an unflinching front. And -Mr. Bonamy did what he could to watch his daughter, but that was not so -easy. She was amusing herself, but whether she was going too far in her -trial of Harry’s constancy he could not tell. She bewildered her father, -which was not difficult; but what was more wonderful, after a while, -this venturous person began to bewilder herself. She thought she was -tired of Harry, who could not be got to swerve out of the right way. She -began to think that it was all a fiction, or that this love after the -English fashion was far too self-commanded and restrained for a half -Italian girl. She had thought at first that it would be quite easy and -extremely amusing to make him betray himself. And she had resolved in -such a case that his downfall should do him no harm; she would not -betray him; she would keep his secret. But she had not supposed that he -would stand out, that he would be able to resist her: and at length she -got confused about her own notions, and about his conduct and everything -around her, and knew no longer what to think. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -A CRISIS. - - -It was like a play the intercourse which went on between these two; the -perpetual aggressions of the girl and defences of the young man, the -troubled spectatorship of the father, who saw that slave of his word -resisting, fighting always, more or less feebly, but yet resisting all -the _agaceries_, all the temptations, which a spirit of mischief could -throw in his way. Sometimes the sight was laughable, sometimes it was -almost tragic, to the looker on; and he was much disturbed at the same -time on his own account, not knowing what Rita meant by it all. “Take -care what you are doing,” he would say to her, with mingled pity and -alarm--pity for the young man, alarm for himself and her. “What am I -doing, papa?” Rita would ask, with the greatest innocence. “That is -exactly what I can’t tell,” poor Mr. Bonamy said. But his warnings never -came to more than this. And nothing in all her life had so amused Rita -as her torture of this unfortunate young man. One day they happened to -be alone for a little while, Mr. Bonamy having been called away. It was -on a Sunday evening, after dinner, a day when the Bonamys, following the -old-fashioned English rule, were always alone. Harry had avoided -opportunities of being alone with Rita as much as lovers generally -scheme for that privilege, but to-day there was no help for it. She was -seated at the open window in her usual dress of vapoury white; the -summer was advancing, and it would soon be time for the removal of the -household to the country, where they went every year. Mr. Bonamy had -been called away, quite unexpectedly, to his own dreadful vexation and -the terror of Harry, but to Rita’s secret delight. The night-air puffed -the white curtains over her head and about her white, half-visible -figure. The window looked out upon the garden, and there was a little -moisture of the sea in the air. Harry was standing at the other side of -the window, half concealed by the floating veil of the curtain. Rita -was half buried in a great chair. A shaded lamp stood on a table in the -other part of the room, but that was all, not light enough to see each -other by. There had been a somewhat long silence, and Harry was trying -hard to break loose from this enchantment and go away. But his heart was -faint with the sweetness of it, poor fellow! and he could not get free, -especially now that they were alone. If it could have been helped, he -would not have stayed; but he had not been able to help it, and it was -sweet. He was snatching a fearful joy, not saying anything, scarcely -daring to breathe. Then into the soft silence came her voice. - -“Mr. Oliver, they tell me summer nights in England are so much sweeter -than here. What are those long twilights? I have read about them, but I -don’t understand it. Tell me.” He could make out that she leaned forward -in her chair, putting her hands together, which was a way she had. - -“I don’t think,” said Harry, catching his breath, “that anything can be -sweeter than the evenings here.” - -“Ah, but there is a difference; tell me. You know that I am never to go -to England,” said Rita, plaintively; “though I remember you said you -would not be afraid to take me. What made you say that, Mr. Oliver? -perhaps you forget that you ever did.” - -“Oh, no; I don’t forget.” - -“You never would enter into any particulars; but I am glad at least that -you don’t forget. Now papa is away, we may talk of it. It always hurts -papa when I speak of England. So tell me--tell me quick--how was it that -you thought you could make it safe? Ah, how I wish you could!” she said, -clasping her hands. - -Harry said never a word. His heart was thumping so against his breast -that he thought every moment it would burst forth from that uneasy -house. Now it got into his throat, and seemed to choke him; he could not -speak. - -“You don’t say anything,” said Rita, with again a little tone of -complaint. “Do you think that is kind, or fair? You rouse my -expectations, and then you never say another word. I have thought of it -all this time, and always wondered if you would ever tell me. How could -Mr. Oliver manage to take me to England without danger? that is what I -have always been saying to myself. What, Mr. Oliver! won’t you say a -word?” - -Here there burst a cry from Harry’s breast. “Don’t torture me,” he said; -then collecting all his strength, “It was my presumption. I thought only -that to take--the most precious care of you----” - -His voice shook, and at last his little torturer felt that she had got -almost to the end of his powers. - -“That is a very pretty way of saying it, Mr. Oliver; precious care; it -is not slang, is it? I am sure you would be kind--very, very kind.” - -“Oh, _kind_!” cried poor Harry, grasping unconsciously the white -curtains that kept blowing between him and her, in his strong, hot -hands. - -“Don’t you like the word? I think it is such a nice word. There is -nothing like it in Italian, and you can apply it so widely. You can be -kind to a horse or a dog; and then to children, and sick people and poor -people; and then--to everybody--me. You have always been, ever since I -knew you, very kind to me.” - -“Don’t say so--don’t say so--not that word,” Harry cried. - -“But there is no other word half so good. Other words express other -feelings; kind means, just kind. There is nothing else expresses it. -English is a wonderfully fine language. It is so strong and so -trustworthy. You feel as if you could believe it, every word. Mr. -Oliver,” said Rita, in her little, soft, insinuating voice, “did you -really, really believe that--that I might go to England, if--someone -were to take care of me, such care as you call precious; but, then, who -would do that? not papa, for he is so frightened. No one I know.” - -“Miss Bonamy, I must say good night,” said Harry, very shortly, taking -himself out of the floating curtain, almost tearing it down in his -agitation. - -“Good night! before papa comes back? Oh, but that would be _un_kind. -Don’t. Why should you run off in such a hurry in the very middle of our -talk?” - -“Because,” he said, with the crushed curtain like a wisp in his hands, -“I can’t stay--I mustn’t stay. Forgive me, and, if you will, excuse me: -and--good night!” - -He was rushing away, when she put out her hand. He saw that, though -there was so little light. He could not refuse to shake hands with her; -and instead of leaving the pressure to him, she took hold of his hand -for a second, lightly but firmly detaining him. “Mr. Oliver,” she said, -with that little plaintive tone, “you should not run away.” - -Harry was hoarse with agitation and distress. That soft, light touch of -detention made him wild. “I must fly,” he said, “fly! Do you think I -want to go? I must fly, and come no more.” - -And he turned and disappeared like an arrow, as swift, but not so -noiselessly, stumbling through the dark room. She lay back in her chair -and listened to him all the way rushing down the stairs, shutting the -great door with a clang. Then his steps were audible along the street -hurrying away. The very foot, Rita thought, spoke English among the -other footsteps. She seemed to hear them ever so far off, hurrying, -flying. She was a spoiled child. She had not succeeded in her wicked -attempt, and some other feeling mingled with the childish disappointment -which provoked and mortified her. When the Vice-Consul came back, not -without a great deal of anxiety in his mind, he found her still sitting -there, crying as if her perverse heart would break. It gave him a -mingled sense of fright and relief to see that there was no one else in -the room; but when he found that Rita was crying, his foolish, fatherly -heart was melted altogether. He hurried across the half-lighted room. -“What is the matter, my darling, what is the matter? Where is Oliver? Is -it his fault?” he said. - -“Papa,” cried Rita, with sobs, “do not speak to me of Mr. Oliver; he is -a clod, he is a stone. It is not a bit true what you told me of him. He -must have been laughing at you--or perhaps at me. It is not a bit true.” - -“What is it that is not true? My pet, this young fellow has been saying -something to vex you? Bless my heart! he shall go to-morrow if he has -broken his word and said anything to annoy you.” - -And the Vice-Consul, very wroth, drew a chair to the side of Rita’s, and -put his arm round her, soothing her with soft words and caresses, and -launching thunderbolts of anger at the supposed culprit. Rita cried -softly for some time on her father’s shoulder. Then she interrupted him, -putting her hand upon his mouth. - -“Papa, don’t; you don’t know. What provokes me is different. It is not -because he said anything. Listen,” said Rita, putting her lips to his -ear; “I _know_ it is not true what he said to you. It can’t be true, -because I have tried him and tried him, and he _won’t_ say anything. He -has no feeling at all in him, and it cannot be true.” - -“Rita! Rita! what are you saying?” Mr. Bonamy cried. - -The horror in his voice brought her to herself. She sat up suddenly, -drying her eyes. “Well, papa, it is your fault. You gave me a puzzle to -make out. I thought it would be fun; but it is not fun. As for Mr. -Oliver, he is just an excellent, trustworthy Englishman. You need not -fear that he will ever be carried away. As for feeling, I don’t think he -knows what it is. He is English--English all over.” She clapped her -hands together to give emphasis to her sentence, like a true Italian, -which by turns she was. - -“Yes, he is English--very English. I thought you liked everything that -was English,” the surprised father said. - -“And so I do; but what does it matter if you will never, never let me go -to England? Take me to England, papa!” - -“My darling! when you know what my feeling is on that subject--anything -but that, Rita; ask me anything but that.” - -“Well,” she replied, “Mr. Oliver said there would be no difficulty about -it; he said he would take the most precious care of me. Is that slang, -papa?” - -“Slang? bless my heart, it sounds like something quite different to me,” -cried the Vice-Consul, frowning. But Rita once more put her hand upon -his mouth. - -“You know better than I do,” she said, demurely. “I could not be sure -which it was; but you may make yourself quite comfortable, papa, for Mr. -Oliver is very conscientious, and never said a word. I begin,” she said -pensively, “to understand English now.” - -“Rita, I think you must be taking leave of your senses. You begin to -understand English! your own language!” - -She nodded her head a great many times in reply. - -“Yes, I begin to understand it,” she said. And this was all he could get -out of her. She began presently to talk upon other subjects, and kept -him amused all the rest of the evening, and Harry was not mentioned -again between them. - -But Harry himself, poor fellow, went home like the wind, or rather like -a straw blown before the wind; hastening, without any apparent movement -of his own, to the bare rooms which were his only refuge. He arrived -there panting like a man pursued, and shut his door as if it were a -fence between him and his pursuers. He could not have explained to -himself why he did this, for Rita, though she had certainly assailed -him, had not come after him through the streets, as by his appearance -one might have thought she had done, forcing him to his best speed. But -when he sat down and thought it all over, though Harry was excited to -the highest degree, it could scarcely be said of him that he was -unhappy. He was breathless with the excitement of his escape. He said to -himself that he must not go again; that he would not run such risks -again, that another time he must betray himself; but all the time, -underneath everything, he had the consciousness that his very flight had -told his story as effectually as words could have done it, and that she -could not now be at any loss to know what was the moving spring of all -his recent life. He felt that she had suspected him all these days. He -knew that she had meant to surprise his secret somehow, whether in -simple love of mischief and curiosity, or whether with some other -motive, who could tell? but certainly this was what she had been doing: -and there dawned upon him a light of something which was not exactly -hope, but which yet warmed and brightened his horizon, and made the -whole world somehow a better, a less heavy and tedious place. He did not -say even to himself that anything definite was in his hope; what he said -was that he could not go back, that he would run no more risks, that, -whatever might be said to him on the subject, his policy was to keep -away. But this had no such tragic meaning to him as it had on the -previous occasion, when his life had been cut off in half, and his -heart, he thought, rent in twain. If he was ever made to go back -again--a thought which made Harry’s heart jump, but which he did not -feel, as before, was impossible--then it would not be to hold his -tongue. And whatever happened there was one thing which he could not be -doubtful about. He had saved his honour, hard as had been the trial, and -yet she _knew_. She could not, he was sure, either mistake him or ignore -him any longer. Reject him, yes; allow him to languish far from her, -which would be the kindest thing, unless---- but certainly now she knew. - -And then a week or more elapsed. After the first twenty-four hours Harry -began to have heats and chills, wondering if he would be forbidden to go -again. He did not intend to go, but yet to be sent away is different; -and he awaited a summons to the Vice-Consul with feelings of alarm. But -though he was constantly summoned to the Vice-Consul’s presence, he -heard nothing upon this all-interesting subject. Mr. Bonamy looked -coldly upon him for the first day, but said nothing save about business. -And afterwards Harry went on just as before. Rita’s “night” came round, -but Harry did not go. He dressed himself as if he were going, and got -rid of Paolo, who had been greatly disappointed by the total absence of -confidence in him which his friend showed. Naturally, after his -exertions on Harry’s behalf, the offer of the ring and the studs, the -purchase of the flower and the eau-de-cologne, Paolo had felt that he -had a right to hear all that had taken place, and how the lady had been -won, which he did not think would be a difficult matter. The idea that -his friend could be called back without the lady being won, did not -occur to his swift Italian mind. And after that critical moment when he -linked his arm in Harry’s, and led him eagerly off to the quietest -promenade he could think of, to hear all about it, Paolo had treated -Harry’s indignant denial that there was anything to tell with the -contempt it deserved. “Nothing?” he had said, with an astonishment -almost beyond speech. “Nothing? But that means that you do not wish to -tell me--that you will not give your confidence to me.” When Harry -disclaimed this, Paolo had only shook his head. “I see that you have not -trust in me,” he said, and he had retired in his turn for a few days -from his friend’s society, and a little coolness and momentary -estrangement had ensued. - -But some time had elapsed since then, and one of those reconciliations -of which Harry was afraid had followed, and Paolo’s interest was warmer -than ever. He watched his friend’s looks and noted every visit he paid, -so that it required nothing less than the effort of dressing and setting -out for the Vice-Consul’s to shake himself free from Paolo’s society and -remarks. Harry went to the very street, to the opposite side, to watch -the windows, and to get a glimpse if he could of the little white -figure, which was the central point in the world to him. But long before -the usual hour the party broke up, and Harry was surprised by a sudden -outpouring of groups of people in evening dresses--ladies with scarfs -thrown over their heads, and satin slippers, not adapted for the rough -pavement. Some of these groups, departing guests, perceived him, before -he was aware. “Oh! are you going to the Bonamys?” said a lady; “don’t -go; the Vice-Consul has been taken ill; he has had a fit or something. -You may see how early we are coming away.” The whole street was soon -full of a babble of voices, all talking of this. The Vice-Consul had -been suddenly taken ill; he had fainted in the midst of the assembly, -and the doctor had been sent for in haste. When Harry looked up at the -windows they were all deserted--the lights still burning, the white -curtains faintly swaying about, but the rooms entirely empty. In a -moment all had become miserable and neglected. Life had ebbed out of the -room, and left everything cold and silent. He felt with a chill at his -heart as if death had come in instead to fill up the vacant place; he -went to the door to inquire about his kind patron, his trustful master, -his fatherly friend, with a heart out of which all the previous thoughts -had departed for the moment. He thought of Rita, indeed, with instant -anxiety; but yet her father was foremost in his mind. “Very bad, sir,” -the servant said, who was an Englishman, “very bad,” holding the door -wide open as he said so; and Harry went in in his evening clothes, -looking as if he had meant to go to the party. He was a little scared -afterwards to think that Rita never could know that he did not mean to -come to the party. He went upstairs into the empty drawing-room; there -were a few signs of hasty disturbance about it, evidences of the sudden -interruption; a card-table set out with all the cards as they had been -dealt round it; groups of chairs standing together, and a tray of ices -on a side-table. Such a forsaken room always raises an infinite crowd of -suggestions. It is such a lesson upon the dangers and changes of life as -no sermon can read. Harry stood in the midst of it, feeling as if he had -seen the writing on the wall which startled the ancient king in the -midst of his revel. It had been an innocent revel--nothing in it to -offend earth or heaven; but the touch of a sudden calamity makes even -the most innocent pleasure-making seem vain. He stood there feeling as -if on the edge of a tomb, hearing in the distance muffled yet hasty -steps running to and fro, and all the excitement of a sudden illness. -And he had plenty of time to indulge these thoughts, for nobody came -near the room for, he thought, hours; though, of course, this was a -mistaken estimate of the time that really passed. At last Harry heard -measured steps and voices coming downstairs, and hurrying to the door -found the English doctor in company with one of the ladies of the -English community who had known Rita all her life. They told him that -the Vice-Consul’s attack was a very serious one, that he was still -unconscious, and that no one as yet could say how it would turn. “I have -told him for some time he ought to go away. He was struggling foolishly, -when he ought to have given in as so many people do.” “And poor little -Rita, what is to become of her?” the lady said. - -Harry stood with his heart in his mouth, ready for any service. Alas! -what can a young man do in such a case? An old woman is of more use. He -was sent off, however, to fetch a nurse, and to get various articles -that were necessary, and this gave him occupation. He was about the -house all the night, hearing with faint pleasure that Rita would not -leave her father’s bedside, and glad to share her vigil. He would have -liked to be there too to help, not caring what he did. The Vice-Consul -was very ill for many days, during which time Harry threw himself into -the business of the office, and worked like a slave. He thought neither -of reward nor of the manner in which his behaviour was being -contemplated by the little community around, all as much interested as -the population of a village, though they formed an important part of a -large and busy town. He thought nothing of all this; his new life -absorbed him so that he had no faculty or thought that was free for -anything else. He did not seem to require either rest or regular meals, -but took up Mr. Bonamy’s work during the day, and ran about on any -errand of the sick-room all the night. - -And at last the patient began to get better. The seizure had been a very -bad one, but he mended, and was at last able to be removed. He was too -confused even then to know what was being done for him, or to realise -the state into which his work must have got but for the strenuous and -anxious deputyship of his clerk. He was taken away even without -knowing, without being able to say a word to Harry. But Rita, who had so -tortured him, who even in the midst of her watch had heard without -knowing it how Harry had taken her father’s place, and how he had made -himself the servant of the house, did not leave him without a token of -her gratitude. One day, while he was sitting absorbed in business, but -not able to keep himself from thinking now and then wistfully whether he -should see either of them before they went away, there came a soft -little knock at the door of communication by which the Vice-Consul had -introduced him first into his house. Harry was at Mr. Bonamy’s own -table, taking his place, and feeling himself already so much at home in -the work that the appeals which he had dreaded at first no longer -affected him. But when he heard this knock his whole frame quivered. He -did not know what to expect. He got up trembling from his chair, and -opened the door. In the passage stood Rita, very worn and pale, with -dark lines round the eyes that seemed to fill up all her face. She had -scarcely left her father’s bedside, he had heard, watching over him -night and day. Her slight little figure, always so slim and girlish, -seemed to have shrunk to nothing. There was not a trace of colour in her -face. “Miss Bonamy!” he said, with a sharp tone of surprise, though he -was not surprised; the moment he had heard the knock he had been aware -that Rita, and no other, must have made that appeal. The touch on the -door had conveyed a plaintive sound to him like her voice. She smiled, -but did not say anything. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears, and the -soft lines of her mouth quivered. She came into the office, where he -stood gazing at her, and held out to him both her hands, smiling up in -his face like a child. “I have come to thank you,” she said, at last, -the two big tears dropping like drops of rain in a thunder shower, “for -all your--kindness.” She paused a little before that last word, and -through the tears, through the angelical, pathetic smile, which wrung -poor Harry’s heart, there came something that was like a ghost of -mischief. She remembered their last conversation, though so much had -happened since, and could not refrain, though her heart was moved to its -depths, from throwing this ghost of a malicious shaft at him. Somehow -the effect upon Harry was of a different kind from before. Perhaps he -felt that he had now a standing-ground which no one could undervalue or -take from him. At all events he kept her hands in his, and looked at her -with a gaze under which her eyes swerved. “It was not kindness,” he -said. - -Rita drew back a step, though her hands were held fast. Her eyes -drooped, she could not meet his, though Harry’s eyes were insignificant -English eyes in comparison with those great dreamy lights that shone out -of her little pale face. Then she gave one sudden glance at him, -wavering and trembling. “I know it was not,” said Rita, with a great -effort to steady her voice. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -THE VICE-CONSUL’S RESOLUTION. - - -The Bonamys had a little country-house near the sea, one of those grey -houses, with its vineyard and its fields, which are so common in Italy, -so homely, having so little of the picturesque grace which is suggested -by everything Italian to our minds. The rooms were large and sparely -furnished, one of them, the only pleasant one, opening upon a terrace -which overlooked the sea. Here the Vice-Consul was brought, and laid -upon a couch in the long warm days, after the sun had gone off the -house, to breathe in the pleasant saltness, and refresh himself with -that profound Mediterranean blue which is like nothing else. At first he -was able for no mental, and not much physical, effort, but by degrees -life came back to him; and with the earliest gleams of revival came the -recollection of all that had dropped out of his hands, his work, the -office, all that had depended upon him. When this first crisis came, -which had been much dreaded by the doctors, Rita had to meet it alone. -It came in a moment, after a day of listless enjoyment. There had been -some cool breezes, and a little breath of more vigorous life had got -into his relaxed and feeble frame. He had fallen asleep in the -afternoon, his daughter sitting by him. All was tranquil round about, as -became the surroundings of a convalescent, the air breathing softly, the -violent sun, which is in Italy an enemy of the feeble, happily gone out -of sight, the sea sounding softly upon the rocks, the cicala shrill in -the trees. It was the only sharp note in all that quiet, but Rita, for -one, no more knew of the existence of a country landscape without the -shrill tones of the cicala, than an English girl could realise one -without the birds. There were no great trees about, nothing but those -which were useful according to the frugal custom of wealthy Tuscany, -where everything is expected to bear fruit. The lattice-work overhead -was partly covered with a vine, which made a green roof over one part -of it; but the sick man wanted all the air he could get, so he was not -below the pergola, but in the open part, the soft breeze blowing freely -about him. He lay with his fine head turned towards the sea, a beard, -the growth of his illness, softening the gauntness of the lower part of -his face, sleeping with that utter _abandon_ of weakness which seems to -restore something of the charm of childhood to the sick. Rita sat by, -with a book in her hands which she was not reading. It would be hard to -tell what she was doing; not thinking either;--scenes in the past, -scenes in the future, were gliding through her dreamy mind. Which was -most real she could not tell. She was standing on the edge of fate, not -knowing what a day or a moment might bring forth. All the world had -paused with her in that suspense which was sweet. She did not want to be -done with it or to shorten it, or to make anything advance a step -faster; indeed she did not know what it was that was going to come. But -_it_ would not end there, she said sometimes to herself; it was -impossible that it could end there; one thing or another must come of -it. But what it was she wanted to come of it, Rita, even to herself, -would not venture to say. - -When all at once, everything being so quiet, the Vice-Consul suddenly -woke up. He opened his eyes with more energy than usual, and made a -little movement to rise, with an impulse of active life, such as he had -not shown before. - -“Ah, you are there, my pet,” he said. “I was dreaming that we were at -home; that there had been despatches. I fear I have been sadly idle. How -long have I been ill? It is too early for us to be here.” - -“No, papa,” said Rita, alarmed. “Oh, not at all too early--at this time -we are always here.” - -He raised himself on his arm, and a startled look came upon his face. - -“How long have I been ill?” he said. - -“Never mind, papa--a--good while. You are not to think of that; but to -get better, and not to trouble yourself.” - -“That is nonsense, my dear; there is the office that must be thought of; -if you knew the arrears that accumulate even in a few days. I seem to -have lost count of time; oddly enough. I can’t remember anything. How -many--days is it?” - -His eyes opened wide, his under lip quivered a little, and a flush of -weakness and excitement came upon his cheek. Rita threw down her book -and came hastily to his side, kneeling down by the sofa. - -“Papa! you must not be anxious; you must not ask any questions yet. This -I can tell you, there are no arrears. Mr. Oliver has got the charge of -everything, and he is doing it all so well, so well, Mr. Henderson told -me. He said, ‘If it was not so heart-breaking to miss his dear face,’ -and here Rita gave her father a sudden kiss to conceal, and at the same -time to express, her own agitation, ‘one could scarcely see the -difference. Mr. Oliver has behaved like--nobody ever behaved so well.’” - -“Bless my soul!” said Mr. Bonamy, putting up his hand to stroke his -daughter’s face, “here is enthusiasm! I did not know you thought so much -of Oliver.” Then it suddenly occurred to him to look at that hand. He -held it up and contemplated it, at first with amusement, afterwards with -a little alarm. “Here is a poor old claw,” he said, “that looks like---- -why, Rita, it looks like a very bad bout; it looks like a--long illness. -Good heavens! am I deceiving myself. How long have I been ill?” this he -said in a very peremptory tone. - -“Papa,” Rita said, putting her arms around him, “Mr. Oliver has managed -everything, there is nothing to trouble yourself about. Mr. Henderson -said so, and so did the man from Florence--that man, I forget his name.” - -A look of anguish came upon Mr. Bonamy’s face. To come under the -reproof, or subject himself to the interference of the Consul-General at -Florence, had always been the terror of his official life. He had kept -the danger at bay hitherto, acting with great independence, and being -permitted to do so in an astonishing way; but he had known, or thought -he knew, that they were ready to pounce upon him at the first -opportunity. The idea of a man from Florence was bitter to him beyond -conception. A dark colour came over his face, a sort of purple hue, -which made Rita wild with terror. - -“What--what--what?” he cried, stammering. Rita thought he was going to -have another fit; she called out for Benedetta, Benedetta! and with -anxious hands, caressing, yet half forcing him back upon his pillows, -began to fan him with a great fan which lay on his sofa. He allowed her -to lay him down, and perhaps the sight of her anxiety moved him to exert -all his powers of self-control. He subdued the rising confusion of -passionate mortification within him; in which effort he was helped by -his weakness, which made any great convulsion of feeling impossible. -By-and-bye he looked up at her with a half-smile. Benedetta had come at -her call, and was bringing water and vinegar, and bandages of linen to -put on his head. He waved all these appliances away with his hand. - -“Don’t be afraid, I am not going to be--worse,” he said feebly. “I may -be bad enough, but not worse. When did the man from Florence come? Tell -me everything now.” - -Then Rita, hesitating and faltering, told him the story of his illness, -and all the long history burst confusedly upon his brain. He had thought -he had been a few days, perhaps a week ill, and he had been six weeks. -He had been preparing himself for a great deal to do when he should get -well, and he found himself replaced, put aside. There were points in the -story which consoled him. It was no man from Florence who had been doing -his work--that was a wonderful comfort--but his own friend, the young -fellow whom he had taken up and been kind to, who was the creature of -his bounty. The Consul-General had not found a word to say; he had -approved, and sanctioned, and authorised everything, and the character -of Mr. Bonamy’s work had been kept up. He lay still and kept himself -quiet, and listened to every word. Benedetta, who did not understand the -English, stood by with all her appliances, her cold compresses, her -bandages, the soft white folds of linen in which his hot forehead was to -be bound. But the patient eluded her. He kept himself quiet in spite of -all temptations. - -“You can send her away, Rita,” he said. “What are you frightened for? I -must have known sooner or later. It is far better that I should know. I -have been surrounded by friends, everybody has been good to me; and if -you have no objection, my darling, I should like to see Oliver here.” - -“I don’t know,” said Rita, “why you should think I could have any -objection to--anything you wished, papa.” - -There was almost a glow of amusement in the Consul’s eyes. “My dear, you -are very dutiful,” he said. And then the time came when he had to be -carried back again in his couch indoors before the hour of sunset, which -is feared throughout Italy, and to have his invalid meal brought to him. -The evening was marked by a great event, for that night the Vice-Consul -walked to bed, which was a thing which never had happened before. And -from this time Mr. Bonamy began to accustom himself to all that had -happened, and when the doctor came he extracted from him the full -history of his illness, which interested him very greatly, and gave him -something to think about. It was not unnatural that he should be -startled. “It is a thing that is sure to recur again?” he asked. - -“Well, we do not say that anything is sure to recur again. We say that, -given the same disposition, the same symptoms might reappear.” - -“And the third time kills?” the Vice-Consul said. - -“My dear Bonamy, that again is not a thing we say. Every repetition of -course weakens the patient,” said the judicious doctor. - -The sick man laughed, but when he was alone his countenance was very -grave. He lay and reflected upon everything, and thought how lonely his -child would be when he was taken from her. She had some relations, but -his anxiety to keep her from going to England had made him negligent of -his own family at home; and he had something to leave her; he had not -left his child altogether without provision. But what a change it would -be to Rita, from the house where she was queen, where everybody -worshipped and served her, where everything she said was reckoned wiser, -and everything she did more wonderful, than any other sayings or doings, -to be a semi-dependant in the house of her Aunt Ersilia, or some other -of the Italian kindred, with their different ways! This thought filled -Mr. Bonamy’s mind as he lay in the long unoccupied hours of his -convalescence with his face turned to the blue Italian sea. Two days -after he made a request to his child. “Will you write a note to Oliver,” -he said, “and ask him to come and see me? But not if you have any -objection.” He watched her intently, and he saw a quick, faint colour -flash over her face. - -“Why should I have any objection? I told you I had not any, papa; and if -I had what would it matter?” she said. - -“It would matter a great deal to me. But you do not dislike poor Oliver, -Rita?” - -“Dislike him! Do you think I am made of stone? He has done everything, -_everything_, while you have been ill. I should be a demon if I did -not--if I disliked him as you say.” - -“But there is a great difference,” said the Vice-Consul, “between -dislike and--I don’t know, my pet, what word to use.” - -“Yes, there is a great difference,” she said, demurely; and having her -paper neatly arranged before her, she proceeded to write the note which -follows:-- - - “Dear Mr. Oliver, - - “Papa is a great deal better. He thinks he would like to see you on - Sunday if you would be so good as to come out here. He has been - very much touched to hear of all you have been doing for him. And - so am I. He wants to know all about it, and to thank you. But do - not think you will be troubled with any thanks from me, for I know - that you do not mean to be kind to us, though on the outside it - looks like it. - - “Truly yours, - “MARGHERITA BONAMY.” - -Here was once more her malice, which she could not put out of the -question between them. She was glad that her father did not ask to see -her note, and she put it up and sent it away with a little quickening of -all her pulses. Sunday was the next day, but she felt sure enough that -Harry would let no engagement prevent him accepting this invitation. -They sat in silence for some time after that letter was despatched. Rita -felt her whole life quickened, her horizon wider, the day of more -importance, the passing moments more weighty. She sat quite silent, her -mind being full of so many thoughts. At last the Vice-Consul spoke, as -if no pause had occurred. “Notwithstanding,” he said, “you know Oliver -is not clever, Rita; that must be taken into account.” - -On this Rita, not perceiving that she betrayed the strain of her own -thoughts by receiving the remark without surprise, answered, with a -little sigh of regret, “No, he is not clever; but perhaps there are some -things that are better than being clever,” she added, in a doubtful -tone. - -Mr. Bonamy laughed a little, faintly. “Are you coming to see that?” he -said. - -“I don’t know if I am coming to see it, papa. I think I always saw it. -One does not think much whether the people one cares for are clever or -not.” Then perceiving the inference which might be drawn from her words, -Rita blushed wildly, and turned suddenly upon her father defiant eyes. -But he did not make any remark, half because he was weak, half because -of a mingled pang of satisfaction and pain to think that “the people she -cared for” now included other relations than those of the earliest stage -in life. A father, perhaps, feels it more than a mother when his -daughter’s heart goes away from him to another man: there is a keener -jealousy in it, a sharper sense of contrast. He had concentrated all his -happiness in his child; and, lo! in a moment there appeared a stranger -in her life who would be more to her than he was. The first shock of -this discovery is always painful; and as he lay there bearing this and -thinking over all that was before him, an infinite sadness came into the -Vice-Consul’s smile. It was not only natural that this blossom of his -life should detach itself from him, but it was well. To preside at and -assist in the replacement of one’s self by another, preparing as it were -the preliminary ceremonials of one’s own funeral, is a curious -experience; but Mr. Bonamy felt, with a little melancholy that this was -the thing which it now remained for him to do. He could not help making -comparisons between himself and Harry. Harry was not clever; he was a -good fellow who sat and gaped when the conversation took anything beyond -a practical turn. Yes: he was a very good fellow; he had been a saviour -in trouble; but yet--Mr. Bonamy smiled sadly at the idea of stepping -down from his throne, and bidding Harry mount in his place; he could not -promote him to his vice-consulship, but he could promote him to the -throne of Rita, which was more. And it would be well--the best thing -that could happen. Having once had an “attack,” which was how he put it -euphemistically--a man was sure to have more; and the third kills. -Therefore, how needful it was, how essential to have some one to care -for Rita, somebody in whose hands he could leave her--when he died! -“When I die”--these are words which it is hard to say without some faint -shiver. When one is far off from all appearance of that conclusion, they -may be easy; but when the preliminaries of the end have already taken -place, and the clouds are gathering towards the great final tableau and -termination, then the very cadence of them has something in it that -gives a tingle to all the nerves. “When I die.” Mr. Bonamy was not much -over fifty; he had not thought of anything of the kind. But here it was -looking him in the face whether he would or not. - -Harry came at the summons without a moment’s delay. He brought a full -report of all the business to lay before his chief. The Vice-Consul, -notwithstanding his dreary thoughts, was making unmistakable progress. -He was better every day. He was able to take an interest in all that his -deputy had to tell him, and to feel the gratification which all the -office had shared in baffling the man from Florence, and showing him a -state of affairs with which no fault could be found. - -“I told him, Sir, that your business was always in too perfect order to -break down with such a little trial. I showed him how we had only to -follow your rule, and all was clear.” Mr. Bonamy laid his thin hand upon -the young fellow’s shoulder, and patted it softly. - -“I wonder,” he said, “if you would say as much for me if I had no -daughter?” - -“Yes,” said Harry, with the utmost energy; “don’t think, Sir, that I had -any interested motive.” This pleased the Vice-Consul; and it pleased -him too that Harry resented with scorn, and almost indignation, the idea -that he might not return to his work, or that this illness of his was a -break up, as in his heart Mr. Bonamy believed it to be. Harry knew -nothing whatever about medicine, but his light-hearted certainty that -his patron would be in the office again in October as well as ever, gave -a cheer to the sick man’s failing heart, as shouts of encouragement from -the shore, and the sight of all the eager assistants ready to help and -watching every struggle, cheer a vessel which is trying to reach a -dangerous harbour. There began to steal into his heart a feeling that, -perhaps--after all. Notwithstanding he held by his first resolution. He -had a long conversation with Harry, which had nothing to do with -business. The young man never forgot that half hour’s talk, with the sea -air blowing softly over all the sweetness of the garden, the cicala in -the trees, the sound of the Mediterranean beyond. Harry thought that -once or twice he saw in the dim room beyond a little white figure appear -in the distance, opening a door, looking wistfully to see if the -conference was nearly at an end, then disappearing again. And though the -Vice-Consul was opening the gates of heaven to him, at that moment even -Mr. Bonamy seemed tedious. The last time the apparition showed the -Vice-Consul had gripped Harry’s hand with those long worn fingers, which -he called claws, not without a certain justice. “And you must give me -your word never to take her to England,” he was saying, in a low and -earnest voice. But before Harry could reply, Rita, impatient, had come -across the dim room indoors, and was standing in the window with a -pucker in her forehead, and a tone of querulous impatience. - -“You ought to have had your beef-tea, and your champagne, and your -tonic, and all your nourishments,” said Rita. “I have looked in a dozen -times, but you were always so busy! What can you have to say to Mr. -Oliver all this time? He ought not to keep you so long--when you know an -invalid wants feeding constantly,” she said, turning with petulance to -Harry. “How could you be so thoughtless, Mr. Oliver? that was not kind -at all.” - -Harry did not reply anything to this tirade. He looked at her as if the -mere sight of her was enough for him; as if nothing that could be said -made any difference. As for Rita, she was not tranquil, but excited, and -half angry. It was impossible to suppose that they had not been talking -about her, and like many other people she objected mightily to being -talked over. She came out and in with a nervous, irritable haste, -bringing trays with food and medicine which she would permit no one to -touch. Harry, when he offered his help, was driven from her with -contumely, and even Benedetta, making her appearance behind, had the cup -of jelly she carried snatched from her hands and was sent summarily -away. - -“I will have no one serve papa but myself,” Rita said. Perhaps there was -a little compunction in it. When the heat of devotion has cooled do not -we sometimes add all manner of observances to make up outside for what -is wanting within? She was nervously conscious of Harry’s presence, and -aware of the approaching moment when he would insist upon speaking for -himself. And now compunction had seized her capricious soul. She was -angry with her lover because he had stolen her heart from its first -owner. And she would fain have persuaded that first owner even in the -act of betraying him that she was his entirely, and that everything -which withdrew her from him was a pain and irritation to her. Harry, -being simple, was deceived and greatly discouraged; but the Consul, -having more insight, was never deceived. - -And in the evening the inevitable explanation came. It could not be -delayed any longer. The _Curiosa Impertinente_ reaped the consequences -of all her tricks, and all the trials to which she had subjected Harry. -She fell into the pit which she had herself digged. She might even have -been said to be at his mercy, but for his simple devotion, which thought -of no vengeance, and her own spirit and pride, which would have carried -her through any reprisals, and still might have turned the tables upon -him: but in the evening, when the Consul had gone to bed, they wandered -about the terrace under the soft Italian stars, and understood each -other. - -“There is only one thing,” Rita said. “Nothing in the world shall induce -me to call you Isaac. Choose another name, choose any name you please; -but Isaac you are not going to be. What could tempt anybody to call a -child Isaac? it is dreadful. Godfathers and godmothers ought to be -within the reach of the law.” - -Then there suddenly seemed to encircle Harry for a moment the atmosphere -of a very different place. Grey hills rose around him, the stars took a -cold, yet a kinder sparkle; the blue depths of the sea faded away into a -misty valley full of vapours. - -“When I was a child,” he said, “they called me Harry.” He did not make -any further explanations, nor did he feel that any were necessary. For a -moment he seemed to see his mother, with her two thin hands clasped -together, and to hear her voice calling him: but this was but a phantom, -a pale vision, a thing that had passed away for ever. Next moment he was -back again in the warm Italian night, with the cicala chirping, and -Rita, in a little burst of enthusiasm and pleasure, calling him by that -familiar unrelinquished name. - -END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. - -London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13 Poland Street. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2 of 3, by -Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63158 *** diff --git a/old/63158-h/63158-h.htm b/old/63158-h/63158-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index ba3fd2a..0000000 --- a/old/63158-h/63158-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5962 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> - <head> <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> -<title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2, by Mrs. Oliphant. -</title> -<style type="text/css"> - -a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} - - link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} - -a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} - -a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} - -big {font-size: 130%;} - -body{margin-left:4%;margin-right:6%;background:#ffffff;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} - -.blockquot {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;} - -.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} - -.eng {font-family: "Old English Text MT",fantasy,sans-serif;} - -.fint {text-align:center;text-indent:0%; -margin-top:2em;} - - h1 {margin-top:5%;text-align:center;clear:both; -font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:.05em;} - - h2 {margin-top:4%;margin-bottom:2%;text-align:center;clear:both; - font-size:110%;font-weight:normal;} - - hr {width:90%;margin:2em auto 2em auto;clear:both;color:black;} - - hr.full {width: 60%;margin:2% auto 2% auto;border-top:1px solid black; -padding:.1em;border-bottom:1px solid black;border-left:none;border-right:none;} - -.indd {margin-left:8%;} - - img {border:none;} - -.lftspc {margin-left:.25em;} - -.letra {font-size:250%;float:left;margin-top:-1%;} - @media print, handheld - { .letra - {font-size:250%;padding:0%;} - } - -.lspc {letter-spacing:.05em;} - -.nind {text-indent:0%;} - - p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} - -.pagenum {font-style:normal;position:absolute; -left:95%;font-size:55%;text-align:right;color:gray; -background-color:#ffffff;font-variant:normal;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none;text-indent:0em;} -@media print, handheld -{.pagenum - {display: none;} - } - -small {font-size: 70%;} - -.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;} - -table {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;} -</style> - </head> -<body> -<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63158 ***</div> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="c"><img src="images/cover.jpg" -height="550" -alt="" -/></p> - -<p class="c">HARRY JOSCELYN.<br /><br /> -——<br /><br /> -VOL. II.</p> - -<h1>HARRY JOSCELYN.</h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -<br /> -<span class="lspc">MRS. OLIPHANT</span><br /> -<br /> -<small>AUTHOR OF<br /></small> -<br /><span class="eng"> -“The Chronicles of Carlingford,”</span><br /> -<br /> -&c., &c.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -IN THREE VOLUMES.<br /> -<br /> -VOL. II.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span class="lspc">LONDON</span>:<br /> -HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,<br /> -13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.<br /> -1881.<br /><small> -<i>All rights reserved.</i></small><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -<big><span class="lspc">HARRY JOSCELYN.</span></big></p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border:2px solid gray;margin:1em auto;max-width:60%;"> -<tr><td class="c"> -<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_II"> II., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_III"> III., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"> IV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_V"> V., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"> VI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"> VII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"> VIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"> IX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_X"> X., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"> XI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"> XII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"> XIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"> XIV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"> XV.</a> -</td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /><br /> -<small>HARRY’S RESOLUTION.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is nothing that grows and strengthens with thinking of it like the -sense of personal injury. Harry Joscelyn had been very angry when he -left home; but he was not half so angry at that moment as when he looked -out of the window of the railway carriage, as the train swept through -the valley, and saw in the distance the village roofs, over which, had -there been light enough, and had his eyes served him so far, he might -have seen the White House seated, firm and defiant, upon the Fellside. -And every mile that he travelled his wrath and indignation grew. When he -reached Liverpool he had formed his purpose beyond the reach of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> -argument, or anything that reason could say; and reason said very little -in the general excitement of his being. He had been turned out of his -home, he had been refused the money by which he thought he could have -made his fortune. He felt himself cast off by everybody belonging to -him. His mother had permitted that final outrage, he thought; for surely -she could have found means of help if she had chosen to exert herself. -His Uncle Henry had bought himself off, and got rid of a troublesome -applicant by the gift of that twenty pounds. They were all against him. -He thought of it and thought of it till they seemed to be all his -enemies, and at last he came to believe that they were glad to get quit -of him, to be done with him. This was the aspect under which he -contemplated his relations with his family when he got to Liverpool; and -the effect upon him was that of a settled disgust with all the ordinary -habits of his life, and its fashion altogether. When he thought of -returning to the office, to his former routine as clerk, the idea made -him sick. It seemed to him that he could do anything, or go anywhere, -rather than this. But though the impulse of abandoning all he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> been -or done hitherto was instantaneous, he could not quite settle in a -moment, with the same rapidity, what he was to do, or be, in the future. -He crossed to the other side of the great river with his little bag of -“needments,” the linen Mrs. Eadie had bought for him and a few other -indispensable things which he had himself procured, and lived in one of -the villages there, which have now grown into towns, watching the ships -go by, and leaving his mind open to any wandering impulse that might lay -hold upon it. In these days the River Mersey was a great sight, as -probably it is still. To the idle young man, accustomed to some share in -the perpetual commotion of that coming and going, there was meaning in -every one of the multitudinous ships that lay at anchor in the great -stream, or glided out, full-sail, to the sea, or were poked and dragged -away by a restless, toiling little slave of a steam-tug, carrying off -its prey like one of the devils of the Inferno. He knew where they were -going, and what they had to bring from afar, and all about their bills -of lading and the passengers they carried. The river had not to him that -grandeur of prose which becomes poetry, and fact which turns to romance, -in less accustomed minds; but was only a huge<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> highway, a big street -full of crowds coming and going, over which he brooded, wondering where -he should plunge into the tide of movement, and how take his first step -out of the horizons which hitherto had bounded him. He did not say, as -his mother might have done, “Oh, for the wings of a dove!” but he put -that profound breath of human impatience into nineteenth century prose, -and said to himself, “If I had but a steamboat, a yacht, anything to -take me out of reach of all of them, where they will never hear of me -again!” He was not rich enough, however, to hope for a yacht, so that -all he could really do was to decide what “boat” he would go with, and -whether he should turn his steps across the Atlantic, or choose another -quarter of the world in which to become another man.</p> - -<p>He went to the office one day, as Philip Selby discovered, and asked for -the amount of salary due to him, and purchased a few more necessary -articles of clothing; and he wrote to the persons to whom he owed money, -telling them that he was about to leave Liverpool, but would send them -their money without fail within a certain period. He did not know how -this was to be done, but he was resolute to do it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> he had no more -doubt on the matter than he had that he should perfectly succeed in his -plunge into the unknown. But after he had done this he remained for some -days longer by the river-side with a self-contradictory impulse, -watching the ships go by, and putting off the execution of his project. -Where was he to go? To resolve to give up his own identity, to separate -himself for ever from his family, and all his belongings, and all his -antecedents, was easy; but to make up his mind which boat he was to go -by, and whither he was to betake himself, was much more difficult. -America was so hackneyed, he said to himself, with that fastidious -impatience and disgust which is one of the characteristics of a sick -soul: everybody goes to America; it would be the first idea that would -occur to everyone; and this made him throw away that first suggestion -angrily, as if it had been an offence; but if not to America, then -where? He tossed about various names in his mind, satisfied with none, -and when at last he made his decision, it was made in a moment, with the -same kind of sick disgust and impatience as had made him reject the -other ideas as they presented themselves. He was crossing the river to -Liverpool, leaning<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> over the side of the ferry steamboat lest anybody -should see and recognize him, and in his own mind passing in review the -advantages and disadvantages of all the ships he passed. The Mersey was -very full and very bright, the sun shining, a brisk breeze blowing, the -sky blue, the great estuary throwing up white edges of spray and leaping -here and there against the bows of an out-going boat, in a manner which -boded little comfort to unaccustomed sailors outside the shelter of its -banks. The opposite shore was still clothed with trees beginning to grow -green in the earliest tints of spring, and not unpleasantly mingled with -the beginnings of docks and traces of mercantile invasion. Nature, as -yet, had not given up her harmonizing power; the touches of colour on -the masts, a national flag flying here and there, even the sailors’ -washing fluttering among the yards, was an addition to the brilliancy of -the spring lights. The ferry-boat was full of people, though it was not -the hour for business men to be moving about. The freight was a more -varied one than that mass of black-coated figures which weighed it down -to the water’s edge in the morning. But Harry turned his back upon them -all, and looked over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> the side, watching in a dream the long trail of -water which slid under the bows and was caught and churned by the -paddle-wheel. The motion, as he watched it thus, soothed him, and took -the place of thinking in his mind, carrying him vaguely, he knew not -whither, just as he would fain have been carried beyond the ken of men. -He was waiting the guidance of chance, not caring what became of him. -Something caught his ear suddenly as the ferry-boat rustled along by the -side of a long low steamer with raking masts and short funnels, which -lay not far from the bank.</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t go in that boat for the world,” some one said. The remark -caught Harry’s ear, and roused him into mere wantonness of opposition. -“Why?” he said to himself aloud. It did not matter whether it was said -loud or low, nobody but himself could hear it as he leaned over the -rushing water. “I’ll go.” He was in such a condition of perversity that -this was all he wanted to fix his purpose.</p> - -<p>He landed on the Liverpool side, no longer languidly, but with the air -of a man who has something to do, and went straight to examine the ship -and ascertain where to apply for his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> passage. She was bound for -Leghorn. He went stepping briskly forth to the office of the agent, and -then with a mixture of economy and gentility, still conscious of the -importance of the family from which he was about to cut himself off, -took a passage in what was called the second cabin.</p> - -<p>“What name?” said the clerk. What name? he had not considered this -question. Should he give his own name, thus leaving a clue to anyone who -chose to inquire? The doubt, the question was momentary: “Isaac Oliver,” -he said, and looked the man in the face as if defying contradiction. But -the clerk had no idea of contradicting him; as well Isaac Oliver as -Harry Joscelyn to the stranger, who knew nothing about either. Five -minutes after he could not tell what had put this name into his head; -but his fate was decided, and beyond correction. He went home with a -curious feeling in his mind, not sure whether it was amusement, or -shame, or anger with himself and fate. It was all three together. He was -himself no longer, he had thrown away his birthright. What had tempted -him to take the name of Isaac Oliver he could not explain. He laughed, -but his laugh was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> not pleasant. He was annoyed and appalled and -disgusted with himself, but he could not alter that now. All the evening -he roamed about the riverbank, looking at the ships going out and in, -and the little steamers rustling and fuming across the gleaming water, -and all the many coloured symbols and ceaseless industry of the scene, -with a strange sense of having lost himself, of having so to speak died -in the middle of his life. He could not get over it. He was living in a -little inn which had been turned into a sort of suburban tea-garden, -instead of the little neat ale-house it once was. The weather was very -fine and warm, though it was so early in the season, and every steamboat -disgorged a crowd of visitors to sit under the half-open foliage of the -trees, and in the damp little arbours. Harry avoided all these visitors -in the fear of meeting some one who might know him. Harry! he was not -Harry any longer. The mere giving of the false name had changed him. He -did not know who he was. He was confused and confounded with the sudden -difference. Had some one called out Harry Joscelyn quickly, he thought -that it would no longer have occurred to him to answer. He was not Harry -Joscelyn; and who was he? The name he had chosen, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> which some -malicious spirit had put into his head, seemed to float before him -wherever he went. He shuffled in his walk unconsciously as he fled from -himself along the margin of the great flood. What had he done? He had -abandoned not only his own name and family, but his own condition, his -place in life. Wherever he went, he would be known as a peasant, a -common countryman, he thought, never thinking in his pre-occupation that -the strangers among whom he was going knew just as much about Isaac -Oliver as about Harry Joscelyn. The night grew dark, and the great river -gleamed with a thousand sparkles of light like glowworms. Little -vessels, each with a coloured lantern, went darting across and across, -lights swung steadily with a sort of dreamy regular cadence from the -stationary ships. The stars above were not more manifold than those -little lamps below. The quiet of the night had hushed the sounds of the -great city on the other side, and all the heavy hammers and the din of -machinery: but still life was busy, coming and going, darting on a -hundred messages; pilot boats steaming out to sea, little dark tugboats -bringing back cargoes of souls out of the unknown. But Harry thought of -nothing save of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> the strange, unpremeditated step he had taken; that one -incident filled all the earth to him; a momentary impulse, a deed that -was scarcely his, and yet he felt that it would colour all his life. He -stayed out till the passenger boats had stopped and all the visitors -were gone. The little inn was shut up and dark, all but one little -querulous candle sitting up for him, when he went home: home! he called -this temporary refuge by that sacred name involuntarily—just such a -home he now said bitterly, as he would have for the rest of his life. -Fortunately next day the Leghorn boat was to sail, and his new start -would be made without time to think about it any more.</p> - -<p>Isaac Oliver took possession of his berth next morning. He went on board -early, and lounged about the deck all day. For the first time this -morning it occurred to him that they might send after him, that his -departure could not have passed altogether without notice among his -friends. He had not thought of this before, but now it came upon him -with some force. They would try to stop him at the last moment. The very -name he had chosen would betray him, for who but Harry Joscelyn would -call himself Isaac Oliver? He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> kept on the further side of the ship, -leaning over the bulwarks, and watched everybody who went or came with -jealous eyes. Tardy passengers came on board one after another, bringing -luggage and new items of cargo and provisions; there was scarcely a -moment without some arrival, and every one of them, Harry felt, must be -for him. When at last the gangway was detached, the anchor weighed, the -latest idler or porter put on shore, and the very screw in motion, he -felt sure there must be some last attempt, some appeal from the quay. -“Have you one of the name of Harry Joscelyn there?” he thought he could -actually hear them calling; and saw the rapid examination of the list of -passengers, and the shaking of heads of the captain and his immediate -assistants, who were standing together high above all the others. When -there could be no longer any doubt that the steamboat was off, and that -no appeal of the kind had been made, a quick and hot sense of offence -came over Harry. He had been alarmed by the idea of being identified and -stopped at the outset of his voyage: but as soon as he was certain that -he was to be allowed to proceed peaceably on that voyage, his heart -burned within him with a sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> of injury. Now it was indeed all ended -and all over, his life, his name, everything to which he had been -accustomed in the past. He went below to his berth, with a sense of -complete abandonment and desolation which it would be impossible to -describe. It appeared to him that until now he had only been playing -with the idea, amusing himself with all the preparations for a change -which would never really take place, which somehow would be stopped and -prevented at the end. But nobody had put forth a finger to stop him, and -now the end was accomplished and beyond all remedy. Up to the time he -came on shipboard he had not thought of being stopped, but now he felt -as if he had expected it all the time, and was grievously injured and -heartlessly abandoned by all the world and by all his relations, not one -of whom would lift a finger on his behalf. He went down to his shabby -berth in the second cabin, and felt much disposed, like his mother, to -turn his face to the wall. But, perhaps fortunately for Harry, the sea -was rough, and when the vessel steamed out of the Mersey and felt the -full commotion of the waves outside, he was sick, and not in a condition -to care for anything.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> - -<p>In this way he lost the thread of his trouble for the first two days: -and then novelty and excitement began to tell upon him, and he came -altogether to himself. No, not to himself: he did not feel clear about -who he was or what. He came to—Isaac Oliver, looking that new personage -in the face with a bewildered awe of him and wonder at him. Isaac -Oliver! who, he wondered vaguely, could he be? not a son of old Isaac, -who had only little children—a nephew or a cousin, some off-shoot of -the family, if the Olivers could be called a family, a suggestion at -which he smiled in spite of himself. That must be who he was, the -offspring of a race of peasants, no better blood, no other pretensions. -The Joscelyns were a very different class of people, but he had given -them up, he had shaken off all bonds between them and himself. “In for a -penny, in for a pound,” he said to himself, setting his face to it with -a smile, as the steamboat bore up along the Italian coast, and “the old -miraculous mountains hove in sight.” Harry did not feel any special -interest in Italy: he was of the class who never travel, and understand -but little why one place should be more interesting than another. And, -indeed, Leghorn does not sound<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> like Italy to any traveller. What he -knew of it was that it was a busy sea-port, where there were merchants’ -offices and a thriving trade. He did not interest himself much about -anything else. He had his living to make, alone and unbefriended in a -strange country: need was that he should collect himself and pluck up a -heart and think what he was to do, now that he was so near the place of -his destination—or, at least, not what he, but young Isaac Oliver, was -to do. Would any merchant take him in without character, without -introduction or testimonial? This thought was like a cold breath going -through and through him, when he began to think. But he had still a -little money in his pocket, and could afford to wait and look about him -for a week or two. There is always something turning up in a busy place. -And Harry, accustomed to occupation all his life, could not believe that -he would ever starve where there was anything to do.</p> - -<p>They had touched at various other ports on the way, whose chief claims -to be visited were such as Harry had little understanding of, and the -eagerness of his fellow-passengers to get on shore and see these places -had surprised him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> For his own part, he did not see the fun of going to -see a succession of churches and pictures. He had seen but few pictures -in his life, and he had never been taught that they were of much -importance. He had, indeed, privately, an honest contempt for such -things, though he said little about it. He was disposed to ask, “What -are you all staring at?” when he was brought face to face with an early -Master, a thing which he would have banished into the darkest corner had -it been his. But when he got into the harbour at Leghorn he began to -feel himself once more <i>dans son assiette</i>. He knew what the docks -meant, and appreciated the masts of the shipping better than if they had -been the most delicate works of art. It was nothing to Liverpool, but it -was something he could understand and felt at home with. He landed in -better spirits than he had experienced for a very long time. He felt a -moral certainty that he should “get on” here.</p> - -<p>But what a shock it was when the unaccustomed Englishman stepped first -on shore, and found himself in the midst of a strange life, of which he -did not understand even the first word! He knew very well, of course, -that it was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> foreign place, and that English was not spoken there; but -he never had realized that it would be impossible by speaking loudly, or -using a sort of broken English, or some other simple contrivance, to -make the barbarous natives understand. Even an individual much better -educated than poor Harry may be excused if the shock of that -extraordinary solitude and isolation which surrounds him when he finds -himself incapable of understanding a word of what is going on, is a -surprise and irritation as well as a discomfort. He stood on the quay -with his little portmanteau by him—after having been rowed over endless -links of basins, all full of clear green sea-water, cut like a great -jelly by the progress of the boat, to the landing-place—and stood there -aghast, and, indeed, agape, hustled by the crowd, and with a grinning -porter on each side of him making offers of incomprehensible service. He -would not deliver himself over into the hands of any such harpies he was -resolved, not even when they addressed him in a word or two of English, -though the sound was as balm to his ears. He stood over his portmanteau -and angrily pushed the facchini away, but at last got hold of a lad -whose appearance pleased him, who was tidier<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> than the rest. To him -Harry said “Hotel?” in a sort of half-questioning, half-suggestive way; -but this was not enough to get him clear of the officious crowd, who -flew at him with names which conveyed no meaning to his ears. Harry felt -like a man caught in a hailstorm as he was pelted with those big -sonorous syllables. He grew furious with confusion and bewilderment. He -had not been thought specially strong on the Fells, but here his -North-country muscles told. He pushed away the crowd, who he thought -were making a joke of him, and took up his own portmanteau. “The -gentleman is all right,” said some one beside him; “you have no -education, you are without manners, you others,” and somebody took off a -hat and made a salutation, somebody who reached to about Harry’s elbow. -It was civil, and the first part of the sentence had been said in -English, so Harry, learning by experience, conquered his wrath, and was -civil too. “Can I perhaps indicate a hotel?” this new personage said; -“Mister is an English?” Harry stood still and looked down upon his new -acquaintance, not quite clear as to the meaning of what he said. He was -a little man, small and dainty, dressed with quaint care, with high -shirt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>-collars, and a large black cravat tied in a bow, and the most -shining of black hats, which he took off when he spoke. He was -olive-complexioned, with big, dark, soft Italian eyes. “Mister is an -English?” he said; “by paternity I am an English, too. I will indicate a -hotel if the gentleman chooses. It will deliver him from <i>la canaglia</i>, -what you call this rabbel,” he added, with an ingratiating smile, and a -great rattle of his <i>r’s</i>. It was mere good-nature, but Harry was by no -means sure of this, and he knew that foreigners were deceivers. “Thanks, -I won’t trouble you,” he said, abruptly, and lifting his portmanteau—it -was not a big one—strode away. He felt angry and depressed, yet -excited. The astonished look of the little man, who made him another -bow, and replaced his hat with a shrug of his shoulders at the -Englishman’s want of manners, added to his discomfiture. Perhaps he had -made a fool of himself by refusing those good offices which were offered -to him, Harry thought. Perhaps he would have been a bigger fool had he -accepted. Perhaps they were all in a conspiracy to rob him. He strode on -and on, somewhat ashamed of his own appearance with the portmanteau, as -if he were too poor to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> pay anyone to carry it, and thoroughly -bewildered altogether amid the sounds and sights which he did not -understand. But at the end he got into an inn where there was some one -who spoke English, not such a usual accomplishment in these days as it -is now; and where he got a room which was very strange of aspect to the -untravelled young man. The half hour which he passed there, seated upon -the odd little bed, with his portmanteau at his feet upon the tiled -floor, all so strange, so desolate to Harry, was as terrible a moment as -he had ever passed in his life. His very soul was discouraged, sunk low -in his breast with a kind of physical drop and downfall. It was all he -could do not to burst out crying in his forlornness and helplessness and -solitude. What could he do in a place where he did not understand a -word? In many cases novelty is delightful, but there are some in which -it is the most dreadful of all depressing circumstances. Everything, -from the dingy tiles under his feet, and the dark eating-room -downstairs, with its unaccustomed smells, up to the blaze of the Italian -noon, and the incomprehensible tongue that everybody spoke, weighed upon -Harry. He covered his face with his hands, sitting there upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> his bed. -What evil fate had led him to this unknown place? What should he do -without even a name that belonged to him, without a friend? A gasp came -into his throat, and the hand that covered his eyes was wet. He felt -himself bowed down to the very ground.</p> - -<p>After thus “giving way,” however, Harry braced himself up, and recovered -at least the appearance of courage. He made the best toilette he could -by the help of the small washing utensils, which were not so entirely -abhorrent to English customs then as they are now—for baths were not -very general, and washing-basins were but small, in the first quarter, -if not the first half, of this century. And then he sallied forth -refreshed—into a new world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /><br /> -<small>A NEW WORLD.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>ARRY strayed about the town during the afternoon, losing his way, and -finding it again; but got back to the hotel before the important hour of -dinner, of which the English-speaking waiter had informed him. He was -less amused than depressed with all he saw. The perpetual talk that -seemed to be going on around him—sharp, varied, high-pitched, -incomprehensible—gave him at first a sense of offence, as if all these -people were doing it on purpose in order to bewilder him, and afterwards -a profound feeling of discouragement. He was not clever he was aware. He -had never been very great at his school work, and how was he to -accomplish the first preliminary, the very initial step of existence -here,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the learning of the language, to which he had no clue, and of -which he could not make out one word? It seemed to him as if years must -elapse before he could master the very rudiments of the new tongue; and -how was he to seek for work, or to get work to do, not knowing the very -<small>A B C</small> of the life about him? Harry went doubling about the unfamiliar -streets, looking with wistful eyes at every passer-by who had the look -of an Englishman, and asking himself what he was to do. He did not seem -to have any spirit left for the uphill work of learning a language. -There rose up before him a vision of the exercises which he had once -laboured at, daubing himself with ink, and of the verbs which he had got -by heart overnight only to forget them in the morning. To think that he -could not even ask his way! Wherever he strayed he looked at the people -helplessly, as if he had been dumb, and anxiously examined all the -street corners, without venturing to approach any shop, or lay himself -open to any encounter. He was more fortunate than might have been -expected in this point, for he found the right street corner at last, -and the house, with its strange old courtyard, and the long dark <i>sala</i> -which looked into it, and in which the guests<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> were already gathering. -The house had a good reputation, and the large room was nearly full. -Harry, who had never seen anything of the kind before, saw the people -take their places, each appropriating his own turned down chair, and -half finished bottle of wine, and looked for his own place with a -curious sense of the everyday character to the others of all these -proceedings, which to him were so unusual. Yesterday, at the same hour, -no doubt they had all been here, and last year, and as long as anybody -could recollect, munching a slice from the long Italian loaf, the yard -of bread which of itself astonished his simple-minded ignorance. To -think that with such an air of routine and long establishment this -dinner should have been happening methodically every day while he was -pursuing his work at Liverpool, or taking his holiday at home. At home! -The words sounded like a bitter sarcasm to the young man, who had no -home—who had now no identity, no self to fall back upon, but had begun -to exist, so to speak, only a few days ago. And to think this table, -with all its soils and steams, should have been waiting for him all this -time!</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Ere, Sarr, ’ere,” said the English-speaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> waiter, his black eyes -rolling in his head with pride and pleasure in this exhibition of his -gift of languages. He was holding the back of a chair which had been -carefully turned down, and was placed between a fat old Italian, with an -enormous depth of double chin, and a small figure, which Harry -recognised at once as that of the man who had spoken to him on the quay. -“De gentelman speak English,” said the waiter, bowing with amiability -and pleasure. Harry, it is to be feared, did not appreciate the -exertions made in his behalf. The little stranger, on his side, was as -smiling and bland as the attendant, delighted to make himself agreeable. -They both thought it the most pleasant thing in the world to surprise -the sulky and speechless Englishman with a companion to whom he could -talk. “Mister have found his way after all to the Leone,” said his -friend, “I wish myself joy of it. It is what I most did desire. He is -the best hotel, the very best hotel in all Livorno. Most of the -strangers, what we call forestieri, find their ways here. Mister will -find himself very comfortable; the kitchen is excellent, and the -chambers—the chambers!” here the little man spread out his hands with -ecstatic admiration, “so clean, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> comfortable; everything an -Englishman desire.”</p> - -<p>Harry was cross, and he was suspicious. He thought the reappearance of -his first acquaintance looked like a conspiracy, and that probably -between the man and the waiter it was an understood thing that the -Englishman, who was so ignorant, should be made to pay for his -initiation into foreign ways. But he had no intention of being made to -pay if he could possibly help it. He had not the slightest understanding -of the waiter’s benevolent wish to make him comfortable, or the innocent -satisfaction of the other, at once in showing off himself and his -acquirements and showing kindness to a stranger. Harry did not realize -the national character in both, which made them pleased to serve him, -and anxiously on the watch for the look of pleasure which they -anticipated as their reward. An English servant would have looked on -with anticipations of another kind. He would have watched to see the -stranger’s hand stealing into his pocket: and on this point no doubt -Antonio had as sharp an eye as anyone; but his Italian soul, asked for -something more; he wanted to see a glow of pleasure in the face of the -person to whom he had just, as he thought, done a service. Harry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> -refused to pay in this wise. His countenance, somewhat dark before, -settled down into a heavier gloom. He drew in his chair to the table -roughly, losing part of his companion’s address: and he did not look at -the young man who was talking to him, or give him any recompense for the -effort he was making. After a while he made a remark, but it was not a -very civil one. “Why do you call me Mister?” was what he said.</p> - -<p>The stranger looked at him, complacent still, but yet a trifle -abashed—“Because,” he said, stroking a small moustache, and fixing his -eyes upon Harry with a smiling yet deprecating glance, “I do not know -the gentleman’s name.”</p> - -<p>“Even if you don’t know a fellow’s name,” said Harry, ruthless, “it -isn’t English to say Mister. Mister is a title of contempt.” Here the -horrified look of his new acquaintance made him pause. “I mean when it’s -used alone without the name. Low people sometimes use it so—but nobody -who speaks decent English,” Harry said. As he spoke the stranger’s olive -countenance caught flame and grew crimson. He laughed an embarrassed, -uncomfortable little laugh.</p> - -<p>“It is that I am mistaken,” he said; “I have not spoke English moch. The -gentleman will pardon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> my error. My name is Paolo Thompson,” he said, -with a little wave of the hand, introducing himself.</p> - -<p>“You would like to know my name,” said Harry.</p> - -<p>The Italian-Englishman replied, not with any expression of offence, but -with a smiling bow.</p> - -<p>“My name is——” he made a pause. He looked at the interested -countenance beside him, a sense of the ludicrous mingling with his -suspicious distrust of all strangers and foreigners. What did it matter -what he said to a little impostor like this? “Oliver,” he added, with a -laugh. He almost thought the little fellow, though not an Englishman, -must see the incongruity, the absurdity, of associating the name of -Oliver with such a person as Harry Joscelyn. It suddenly became a -practical joke to him, a masquerade which everyone must see through.</p> - -<p>“O—— livr,” said little Thompson, with a long emphasis upon the first -letter, and a hurried slur over the rest; “that right? alright! Mister -O—lvr.”</p> - -<p>“Not Mister,” said Harry, growing benevolent as he felt a little -amusement steal over him, and he tried to give his new acquaintance the -<i>nuance</i> of sound which divides the Mr. of English use<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> and wont from -the two distinct syllables of which Paolo was so fond. They grew friends -over this attempt at unity of pronunciation, or rather Harry permitted -himself to grow friendly, and to ask himself what harm this little -foreigner could do him—a little hop o’ my thumb, whom he could lift in -one hand. As he laughed over his new friend’s attempt to catch the -difference of sound, his friendly feeling increased. He felt his -superiority more and more, and in that superiority his suspicions melted -away. As for little Paolo he took everything amiably. He had no -objection to be laughed at.</p> - -<p>“You mean not bad,” he said, “I know; you mean not to make angry. Laugh, -it is a way of us English. My father was an Englishman. I never know -him; he was died before I am born; but I too am an English by origin. It -is for that I have my place. I am Interpreter. I put what you say in -Italian. I put what one would say to you in English. Thus I please to -both,” said the little man with lively satisfaction; and he laughed when -Harry laughed with genuine good faith. Perhaps it was the reaction from -his past despondency which made Harry laugh so much, perhaps the little -bravado of a stranger<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> feeling himself gazed at and isolated among a -crowd of people alien to him. He attracted the eyes of all the guests at -the table-d’hôte especially of some Americans who had come in late, and -one other Englishman who regarded him gloomily from the other end of the -table, and concluded that his countryman was having too much to drink, -but that it was not his business. Harry was not taking too much to -drink; he was making wry faces at the sour Nostrali, which was the only -wine provided without a special order. Harry did not understand any wine -except Port and Sherry, and he despised the sour stuff of which he took -one big gulp and no more; he did not know what else to order, and he did -not like to mix up Paolo in his affairs so far as to ask his advice on -this point. Paolo for his part was drinking a little of his wine in a -tumblerful of water, not without some alarm lest the <i>eau rougie</i> should -go to his head. He told Harry all his story as they sat together. His -father had been an English clerk, sent out from England to an office in -Leghorn, who had married an Italian girl, and died in the first year of -their marriage. Paolo was very proud of that fine and aristocratic name -of Thompson, of which there was a Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> and many Sirs, he informed Harry -with great but smiling seriousness; his mother, though she had been so -young, would never re-marry herself, though pressed on all sides to do -so—such was her devotion to her youthful husband who was English, and -to the romantic and euphonious name which he had left her. The young man -grew every moment more friendly. Harry’s suspicions all floated away as -he listened to the story, and laughed at the accent and grammar of his -new acquaintance, who laughed too with perfect good-humour. Thompson—he -was a fit associate for an Oliver, Harry said to himself, knowing -nothing about any Oliver save Isaac whose name he had appropriated. -After dinner was over Paolo proposed that they should go for a stroll; -and though Harry had done nothing else but stroll all the afternoon with -very small advantage, yet he was quite willing to begin again with the -aid of his friend’s knowledge. It was less lonely than sitting in the -dreadful little room of which Paolo had ventured to say that it was so -comfortable, and exactly what an Englishman liked. Harry shuddered at -the thought; he had never been used to sit in his bedroom, and he could -not but feel it a sort of humiliation that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> had no other room to sit -in. His new friend was a wonderful example of costume to the untrained -taste of Harry. He wore trousers of a large check, but a black evening -coat over them, a large shirt-front, a black ribbon at his neck tied in -a bow, and varnished shoes. He was very well contented with his -appearance. When he added an opera-hat to all this finery, the sensation -in his little bosom of thorough self-content was very warm. Harry could -not but laugh at the little exquisite, whose gorgeous apparel was so -unlike anything he had ever seen.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know if I dare to walk out in my coloured clothes with such a -swell as you are, Thompson,” he said. Paolo looked down upon himself -delighted. He knew he was well-dressed.</p> - -<p>“You are all right,” he said, “an English, that covers all; but when one -is only by origin, more must be done. Komm a-long.” He stretched up his -hand, which he had just clothed in light kid, to Harry’s arm, who had no -gloves, nor any other advantage. The Angelus was sounding from all the -churches as they set out. Harry could not but wonder if there was an -evening sermon, or if it was a series of prayer-meetings which were -going on. He was much surprised that foreigners should have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> such devout -habits. It surprised him, too, to see how soon it got dark; but as it -happened there was a brilliant moon which soon made the streets as light -as day. And as soon as the sacred hour of sunset, the fatal hour which -Italians dread, was over, the streets filled with a crowd which still -more surprised Harry. Before all the cafés the pavements were -crowded—not only men, but women, seated at the little tables enjoying -the freshness of the lovely evening, and making such a hum and babble of -talk as nothing but an unknown tongue can produce. A language which is -familiar to us never sounds so like an uproar and tumult as one that is -unintelligible. Harry’s first thought was that the people about him were -all quarrelling; his second that this chatter was the riotous and -boundless gaiety which he had always heard attributed to “foreigners;” -but the scene amused him, though it was so unintelligible, and by and by -a degree of toleration which years at home could not have conveyed to -him, began to penetrate his mind. Perhaps after all it was only the -different habits of these unknown people, and neither quarrelling nor -riot. Sometimes one would jump up in the midst of a conversation as if -impelled by a sudden outburst of fury, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> address his friends, -gesticulating wildly; but after Harry had taken the alarm, and sat ready -to strike in if any harm happened, he noticed that the friends of the -violent person took it quite calmly, turning upon him looks which were -full of smiling placidity, and evidently fearing nothing. In the same -way when two men were threading their way along the street together, one -would suddenly drop the other’s arm, and standing still, discourse with -every mark of excitement for a minute, then resume his friend’s arm and -go on again as if there had been no interruption. An Englishman would -have knocked down his adversary with much less demonstration. Harry felt -himself obliged to pause too, and give an eye to these personages; and -when he also sat down with his companion at one of the little tables, -his attention to Paolo’s doubtful English was constantly interrupted by -the same supposed need of watchfulness in case the party next to them -should come to blows. But all the other people took it quite quietly, to -Harry’s great surprise.</p> - -<p>“Why do these beggars jump up in that way and look as if they were going -to knock some other fellow down?” Harry said at last.</p> - -<p>“Beggares?” said Paolo, looking round hastily;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> and then, for he was a -young man anxious to improve himself and quick of apprehension, he -jumped at the Englishman’s meaning. “Ah! that is English for questi -Signori, these gentlemen? beggares! capisco, capisco!” said Paolo, -clapping his hands as at an excellent joke; “they do nothing but make a -little conversation, what you call talk,—these beggares;” and he burst -forth once more into a genial peal.</p> - -<p>Harry was half pleased to have achieved such a facile success, and half -alarmed lest perhaps Paolo might be laughing at him. He said with a -suppressed growl, “Conversation! do you call that conversation? I -thought they were going to fly at each other’s throats.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, no—never fly at each other’s throats; they have too much -education,” said Paolo; “it is the Italian animation, that is all. An -English is what you call quiet. He talks down here, not out of his -mout,” and Paolo beat himself upon the breast, and pointed to about the -spot out of which Harry’s deep bass proceeded. Harry was by no means -pleased with this familiarity, but he reflected that the little man was -his only friend among all these strangers, and subdued his displeasure. -He did not know very well what to do<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> with the pink syrup that was -furnished him to drink: that, and the sour wine, and the black coffee, -were all alike out of Harry’s way. Oh, that he could have had but one -mighty draught of English beer to clear all these cobwebs out of his -throat! But this was an indulgence, like so many others, to be hoped for -no more.</p> - -<p>After Paolo had sipped the rosolio which Harry contemplated with such a -mingling of alarm and disgust, they got up and continued their walk. -By-and-bye, in the full moonlight, they strolled towards the port, and -walked about on the quays, among the shipping, which threw up its black -lines of masts, and dark lace of cordage against the silvery light of -which the sky was full. Harry was interested about all this, much more -than about churches or pictures. And he threaded his way among the -ropes, and piles of barrels and cases with which the quays were -encumbered, with a stir of curiosity and hope. Should he find his life -and work within the circle which surrounded these instruments of wealth? -He paid but little attention to the talk of his companion as they went -along. He seemed to see once more the new career before him which he had -been doubting an hour or two before. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> was not a very magnificent -prospect: yet work that suited him might surely be found when there were -goods to be exported, and counting houses to look after these goods. He -did not know what might become of him in this strange place, but -whatever his fortune might be it was all he could look forward to, and -his mind seemed to take a new start from the appearance before him of a -possibility, a strain of existence which he understood. He forgot, as he -listened to Paolo’s chatter going on by his side—which filled him with -a vague, superficial sense of superiority—all about the new language to -be learned, and the difficulties which had almost overwhelmed him in the -afternoon. Thus he went on, allowing his companion to talk, and thinking -his own thoughts, till they emerged from the immediate regions of the -basins and docks and came back to the streets. They were crossing one -which was very dimly lighted, and which Paolo informed him led into the -better quarter of the town, when they came in sight, or, rather in -hearing, of a party of sailors in a noisy state of exhilaration. What -could they have been drinking, Harry wondered, thinking of the sour wine -and the rosolio, to make them so convivial?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> They were singing rude -choruses, and making night hideous with jokes and loud laughter, bearing -a wonderful family resemblance to noises of the same kind which Harry -had heard near the port of Liverpool—when there suddenly crossed the -moonlit-road, between the revellers and the two orderly passengers, a -couple of female figures moving rapidly, figures very easily identified -as those of an elder and younger woman—a sedate and ample personage, -with a girl clinging to her. Two of the sailors, with a holloa of -satisfaction, started forward in pursuit. They overtook the women when -they were close to Harry and his companion, and one of them seized the -girl by the arm. She gave a frightened cry, and the other woman, -throwing her arm round her, pushed the men away, pouring forth a volley -of rapid Italian, of which Harry of course did not understand a word. He -made a stride forward to the fray. Paolo, on his side, who was small and -not valorous, did his best to hold him back.</p> - -<p>“It is not our business,” he said, with a certain faltering in his -voice.</p> - -<p>“Tell them to let go the girl,” said Harry, with brief determination.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It is not our business,” said the alarmed interpreter.</p> - -<p>“Tell them they had better let go that girl,” repeated the young -Englishman.</p> - -<p>Then little Paolo stood forth, with a courage which was not his own, and -addressed the sailors. He took off his hat with the utmost politeness -and remonstrated. Harry, beginning, by dint of hearing them repeated, to -distinguish the words, at last understood that “Questo Signor” must mean -himself; but the sailors treated the remonstrance with contempt. The -other one took hold of the girl by the other arm, while she screamed, -and her companion raved and scolded at them, pushing and struggling with -all her might. Harry stepped forward into the moonlight. He lifted up -his clenched fist and his big bass voice. “Let go that girl,” he shouted -in good English, with a voice that roused all the echoes. The men did -not know a word he said; but they understood him, which was more to the -purpose. They let go their hold in a minute, and stood staring at the -intruder as sheepishly as any Englishmen could have done, and perhaps -also with a touch of shame. Little Paolo, trembling yet triumphant, kept -close to the champion, while he stood and faced them, ready for -what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>ever might happen. It was not for nothing that Harry was a -Joscelyn. He stood well up to them with a watchful eye and a ready arm. -The women had escaped under cover of this unexpected interposition from -their first assailants, but another pursuer by this time had got upon -their track. “Let’s have a look at your face, my pretty lass,” this lout -said, as he rolled along. Harry’s blood was up in a moment. “Oh, by -Jove!” he cried, as if the sound of his native tongue had been the last -aggravation, “this is too much. I know what to say to you, at least, my -fine fellow,” and he turned upon his countryman like lightning, and -promptly knocked him down. “I am not going to stand any nonsense from -<i>you</i>,” he said.</p> - -<p>It was the affair of a moment—no more. The women flew along the street, -disappearing up the nearest opening. Harry strode on after them with his -blood up, but walking with the most dignified tranquillity. He would not -even turn round to see what had happened. “If he thought I was going to -stand <i>him</i>,” he said, as he went along, “that fellow, by Jove! but he -was in the wrong box.” As for little Paolo, between fright and -admiration, he was at his wit’s end. He danced along,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> now hurrying -Harry on, now facing the other way, walking backwards to keep the other -party in sight, and uttering alarmed entreaties. “Run! run! What if you -’ave kill him?” he cried. “Vergene Santissima! they are coming. You ’ave -done it now, you ’ave done it, and no one to help. Per Bacco! and he -goes as if it were a festa. Run, Mister, run!”</p> - -<p>“I told you not to call me Mister,” said Harry, walking on with perfect -coolness and at his ordinary pace. Paolo was half beside himself. -“Perhaps you have kill a man,” he cried, “and you stop to set right my -English—at such a moment——”</p> - -<p>“Pooh!” said Harry; he would not have quickened his steps for a fortune. -“Don’t you know the beggar is an Englishman? A broken head won’t hurt -him. Let’s keep the women in sight, they might get into more trouble.” -Paolo followed him, trembling and hurried as they got further off; but -the noisy sailors were busy about their fallen comrade, and made no -attempt to follow. They were too much startled by the summary -proceedings of the stranger, and kept back by a certain sense of justice -which seldom fails in such an affray. The little Italian kept close to -Harry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> like a dog, rushing about him, now a little in advance, now a -little behind. “He ’ave pick himself up,” he said, looking back. “Dio! -how the English understand each other! He is not kill.”</p> - -<p>“Killed!” cried Harry, contemptuously. “It takes more than that to kill -an Englishman, even a beast like that fellow. You may palaver with your -own kind, but I know what to do with mine. Come along, Thompson. Where -have those women gone?”</p> - -<p>Here Paolo caught him by the arm, dragging him into the narrow street by -which the flying figures had disappeared. One side of it was in almost -perfect darkness, while the other was white and brilliant in the -moonlight. “You like to know who it was,” he said. “Per Bacco! I know.”</p> - -<p>“It does not matter to me who it was,” said Harry, “so long as they are -safe, that is all I care for. Women have no business to be out so late -at night.”</p> - -<p>At this Paolo nodded his head a great many times in assent. “But that is -English too,” he said. “How you are strange! You let a young lady go in -the street, and you kill a man, and never think more of it! and the man -when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> is kill, get up and walk away instead of to avenge himself! You -are strange, very strange. I understand you very well, for I am an -English too.”</p> - -<p>After this somewhat startling incident, however, they did not linger -long on their way. It had stirred the blood in Harry’s veins and given -him the new start he wanted. There is nothing like a new incident for -familiarising the mind with any great change in this life. Hitherto he -had thought of nothing but his own transmogrification. Now he had -something else to think of. He got back to his inn unmolested and -uninterrupted, and he found his dreary little room not so dreary when it -became a shelter for his fatigue, and a refuge in which to think over -the strange excitement of this first new day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /><br /> -<small>SETTING OUT IN LIFE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>EXT morning Harry was woke by the appearance of his little friend at -his bedside. For a moment it was all fantastic to him like a dream, the -narrow slip of room with its tall walls, and straight windows, and the -strange little figure by his bedside. “Hallo,” he said, “who are you, -and what do you want?” opening his sleepy eyes, and springing up in bed. -Paolo retreated with a little alarm.</p> - -<p>“I go to the bureau,” he said, “but before I go I am here to say good -morning. What will you do without me?” the little man added with great -simplicity. “Get lost, get into what you call skrape. Antonio, he speak -a little. I come to advise that you take him with you. It will be only -five lire, not very moche for an English.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I wish you could remember,” said Harry pettishly, “to say an -Englishman. An English is no sense: you never hear <i>me</i> say that.”</p> - -<p>“Alright,” said Paolo good-humouredly. “I will remember; but it will be -better to take Antonio; he shows you everything, all the palaces and -streets, and you give him cinque lire—five,” holding up his fingers -spread out to show the sum, and counting them with his other hand, “and -you talk, he tell you things in Italian, you make a lesson out of him,” -he added with a grin, showing all his white teeth.</p> - -<p>It was a sensible suggestion, but Harry was perverse. “That is all very -well,” he said, “but I don’t care about seeing your palaces; what I want -is to get something to do. Ain’t there a <i>Times</i>, or something with -advertisements? where a fellow could see what’s wanted?”</p> - -<p>Paolo looked at him with a doubtful air, and his head on one side like a -questioning sparrow. He was so small and so spare, and Harry so big, -stretched out in the small bed which could not contain him, that the -simile held in all points. It appeared unnecessary that he should do -more than put out his hand to make an end altogether of his adviser, and -there seemed a con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>sciousness of this in the little man himself, who, -recollecting last night, hopped a little farther off every time that -Harry advanced leaning on his elbow, and projecting himself out of bed.</p> - -<p>“You bring letters, you are recommended?” he said. “No?” A cloud came -over Paolo’s face; then he brightened again. “You come with me,” he -said. “The Consul, that is the prince of the English—man. You come wid -me, and I will recommend you. I will introduce you. He have much -confidence, what you call trost, in me.”</p> - -<p>“But you don’t know anything about me,” said Harry.</p> - -<p>Paolo looked at him with an effusion of admiration and faith, “Siamo -amici,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart with a sentiment and air -which to the cynical Englishman were nothing less than theatrical. But -Harry did not understand what the words meant.</p> - -<p>“That is all very well,” he said again, supposing that this was a mere -compliment without meaning. “But what could you say about me? nothing! -You don’t know me any more than the Consul does—or anybody here.”</p> - -<p>“Between friends,” said Paolo, “there is not the need of explanation. I -understand you, Mister.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Are you a Christian or a Protestant,” he added -quickly, “have you a name of baptism, perhaps?” Paolo did not want to -hurt the feelings of his new friend in case he was not provided with -this article. But Harry’s pride was wounded to the quick.</p> - -<p>“A Christian,” he cried, “or a Protestant? I am both a Protestant and a -Christian! I never heard such horrible intolerance in all my life. It is -you who are not Christians, you papists praying to idols—worshipping -saints, and old bones, and all sort of nonsense.” Harry was so much in -earnest that his face grew crimson, and Paolo retreated yet another -step.</p> - -<p>“You heat yourself; but it is not needed,” he said, waving his hand with -deprecating grace. “Me, I am above prejudices. Here one calls one’s self -Giovanni or Giacomo, or Paolo, as with me; and when the person is -respectable of years, Ser Giovanni or Ser Giacomo; but if one has not a -name of baptism, it is the same, that make no difference——”</p> - -<p>“Do you take me for a heathen that never was christened?” cried Harry. -“My name is——” here he stopped and laughed, but grew redder, with a -dusky colour; but “in for penny in for a pound,” as he had already -remarked to himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>—“my name is Isaac—Isaac Oliver, as I told you,” -he said.</p> - -<p>“Bene, bene!” said Paolo. “It is enough, I will say to the consul: here -is Mister Isaac, who is my friend. He is English—man; yes, I -recollect—man; and I respond for him. He will be so condescending as to -take a situation; he will interpret like me; he will make the Italian -into the English, and the English into the Italian.”</p> - -<p>“But how can I do that?” said Harry, “when I don’t understand one word -of your lingo? I can’t do that.”</p> - -<p>Paolo’s countenance lengthened once more; but he speedily recovered -himself.</p> - -<p>“That will teach itself,” he said. “I will talk; I will tell you -everything. Aspetto! there is now, presently, incessantly—an occasion. -Komm, komm along; something strikes me in the head. But silence, the -Vice-Consul, he it is that will settle all.”</p> - -<p>Harry did not think much of Paolo’s recommendation; but yet the idea of -appealing to the Vice-Consul was worth consideration. The thought of an -Englishman to whom he could tell his story—or if not his story, yet a -story, something which would seem as an account of himself—was like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> -rope thrown out to him amid a waste of waters. And, as an Englishman, he -would have a right to be listened to. English officials are not like -American, the natural vassals of their countrymen; but still, when a man -is at his wit’s end, there is something in the idea that a person of -authority, in whom he has a vested interest, is within reach, which is -consolatory. To be introduced to this functionary, however, by Paolo, -whose position did not seem to be very important, did not please Harry’s -pride. He sent the little fellow away with a vague promise of thinking -of it, which disappointed the friendly little man. Paolo could not -restrain his anxious desire to be of use. He went off to the Farmacia to -buy soap and tooth-powder for his amico, and even proposed to fetch him -the little bicchierino of acquavite, with which some people begin their -day, a proposal which filled Harry with horror. Paolo put his -dressing-table in order with the care of a woman, and lingered, anxious -to do something more. He would have brushed his friend’s clothes, if -Harry would have let him. He was proud of his new discovery, the big -Englishman, whom he had secured to himself, and whom he admired in -proportion to his own smallness and inconsiderable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>ness. Something of -the pleasure of a nurse with an infant, and of a child with a new toy, -was in his bustling anxious delight. When at last, however, he was half -forced, half persuaded to go away, Paolo made a few steps back from the -door and held up a warning finger.</p> - -<p>“Mister Isaack mio,” he said, “one must not any more knock down. It is -not understood in Livorno. That which can well do itself in England is -different: here—it is not understood.” His face had become very grave, -then a deprecatory smile of apology broke over it. “In Italy they are in -many things behind,” he said. “It is not—understood.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be afraid, Paul-o,” said Harry, laughing, “I shan’t knock down -anyone to-day. Even in England we don’t do it but when it is necessary. -You may trust me, I shall knock nobody down to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Alright, alright!” said Paolo, with a beaming countenance. He turned -back again to instruct his friend at what hour it would be best to come -to the bureau. “I will speak, and you shall be expected. I will respond -for you,” the little man said.</p> - -<p>At last he went away full of amiable intentions and zeal in his friend’s -cause, zeal which deserved<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> a better reward. For Harry did not build -much upon the influence of Paolo. It hurt his pride to think of -presenting himself anywhere under the wing of this little Italian clerk. -He would stand upon his own qualities, he said to himself, not upon the -ready faith and rash undertaking of a stranger; but though he put it in -this way, it was not in reality because he objected to Paolo’s trust in -him, or thought it rash as another man might have done, but because he -felt himself Paolo’s social superior. It would be hard to say on what -this consciousness was founded. Harry’s only superiority had been his -family, and that he had put away. As he was dressing, he turned over a -great many things in his mind which he might say to the Vice-Consul. Few -young people understand how much better policy it is in all such cases -to speak the truth than to invent the most plausible of stories, and -Harry was not wiser than his kind. He made up various fictions about -himself explaining how it was that he thus presented himself alone and -unfriended in an altogether strange place—all of which he would have -stated with a faltering tongue and abashed countenance, so as to impress -the falsehood of them upon the hearer;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> for to invent excuses is one -thing, and to produce them with force and consistency another. -Successful lying, like everything else, wants practice; few men can -succeed in it who only do it once in a way. It requires study, and -careful consideration of probabilities, so that the artist shall not be -put entirely out by an unforeseen question: and it needs an excellent -memory, to retain all that has been said, so as not to contradict -previous statements. Harry possessed none of these qualities, but then -he was not aware of the want of them; and the thing which made him -depart from tale after tale was not any suspicion of their weakness, or -his weakness, but an inability to please himself in the details of his -romance. And then the thought of going as it were hat in hand, to ask -the Consul to provide him with employment, and the inevitable starting -forth of little Paolo to pledge himself for everything his friend might -say, discouraged him. He grew downhearted as he put himself into the -best apparel he had, and brushed his hair, and endeavoured to look his -best. Would it not be better to start off again, to go, though he had -made up his mind against it, to America after all? There, there would be -no language to learn, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> difficulty in understanding what was said to -him. He went down and swallowed his breakfast, coffee and bread, which -seemed to him the most wretched fare, turning this over in his mind. But -for one thing he did not like to be beaten; no Englishman does, he said -to himself; and Harry was of the primitive, simple kind of Englishman -who clings to all national characteristics. He could not bear to be -beaten, to contradict himself as it were, and depart from his plan. -While he was thinking of all this, however, a brilliant expedient -occurred to him. Though he was reluctant to tell his own story, he was -not disposed to screen himself by any fiction of excuses from the -consequences of anything he had done; and it was undeniable that he had -“got into a row” on the previous night. No Englishman, he reflected, -would think the worse of a young fellow who had knocked down a drunken -sailor to prevent him from molesting a woman; but it would be as well to -go and tell the story of this little incident in case of any ulterior -proceedings. Harry fairly chuckled over his own wisdom in hitting upon -so admirable a way of presenting himself to the representative of his -country. He had never before felt himself so clever. He munched his dry -bread and drank<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> his coffee with a wry face, but something like a mental -relish at least. Little Paolo’s friendly conscience would not need to be -strained. He would be able to bear witness of the facts in all -sincerity, and, if anything were to come of it, there would be at least -a friend in court, a valuable advocate secured. Antonio, the waiter, -drew near while Harry came to this conclusion, and watched him -dispatching his simple refreshment with friendly looks. The Italians -admired the young Englishman’s fine limbs, and height and strength, and -they made a pet of him because he was a stranger and helpless; perhaps -the waiter was not without an eye to substantial rewards, but he had at -the same time a most friendly eye to Harry’s helplessness, and an -amiable desire to make him comfortable. He stood and watched him eating -with sympathy.</p> - -<p>“Ze gentleman would like an egg, perhaps, Sarr?” he said.</p> - -<p>“I should like half-a-dozen,” said Harry with a sigh; “but no, no, never -mind—never mind; for the present this will do.”</p> - -<p>“Ze gentlemen Italian eat no breakfast,” said Antonio; “ze eat—after; -but I will command for ze English gentleman, if it makes pleasure to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> -him, ze English breakfast. There is already one here.”</p> - -<p>“One—breakfast!” said Harry, surprised.</p> - -<p>“One,” said Antonio, with a finger in the air, “English-man, and two -tree Americans; ze eat of ze beef in ze early morning. It is -extraordinary: eat of ze beef when you comes out of your bed. But it is -the same—it is the same; that makes nothing to our padrone; and I will -command it for ze gentleman if he will.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you would,” said Harry, “another time; dry bread is not much to -breakfast upon: and the bread is very queer stuff.”</p> - -<p>“It is good bread,” said Antonio, “Sarr, very good bread; bettare far -than ze bread of London;” he nodded his head as he spoke with -self-satisfaction. “Ze gentleman would like me go wid him—show him all -ze places, and ze grand catedral, and all that ze English gentleman go -over ze world to see?”</p> - -<p>“No, Antonio; I don’t care about cathedrals, but you can come with me to -the English Consul’s if you like, and show me the way.”</p> - -<p>“I like very moche, Sarr,” said Antonio, with a grin. “Ze English -gentlemans please me. Zey is astonished at everyting. Ze pictures—O!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> -bellissimi! and ze palazzi, and ze churches. It is noting but O! and O! -as long as zey are walking about. But, Sarr,” said Antonio, coming -closer, “Livorno is not moche. It is a city of trade. Com to Firenze, -Sarr, if you would see beautiful pictures and beautiful houses. Ah! that -is something to see. Or to Venezia—better still. I am of Venezia, Sarr. -Ze gentleman will not say to Signor Paolo that I tell him so, but -Livorno—pouff!” Antonio blew it away in a puff of disdain. “Firenze and -Venezia, there is where you will see pictures—everyware—of Raphael and -Michael Angelo, and Tiziano, and——”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care much about pictures,” said Harry, calmly. “I like the -shipping better. You can take me to the docks if you like. I don’t want -you to tell me about them. I like to see things I know about myself. But -I tell you what, Antonio, you may teach me the names in Italian, if you -like; that will always be making a little progress,” Harry said, -suddenly bethinking himself of Paolo’s suggestion.</p> - -<p>Antonio’s face had lengthened by several inches. An English gentleman -who did not want to see pictures was a personage of whom he had no -un<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>derstanding. He began to think that Harry was not a genuine -Englishman after all.</p> - -<p>“Ze signor is perhaps Tedesco—no? Or Americain—no? I have known many -English,” said Antonio, gravely, “but zey all run after ze pictures. Ze -gentleman is what you call an original. Benissimo! that makes noting to -me. Ze sheeps in ze harbour are very fine sheeps. You will not see no -bettare—no, not in England. Ze signor wishes—eh?—perhaps to make -observations, to let ze Government—ze ministers know, Italy is now a -great country, and ze others are jealous. You fear we will take ze trade -all away?”</p> - -<p>“Not so bad as that, Antonio,” said Harry, with a great laugh. “Where I -have come from I wish I could show you the docks; they are about ten -times as big as these.”</p> - -<p>Antonio grinned from ear to ear. He did not believe a word of what Harry -said. “If it pleases to ze gentleman,” he said, laughing too. He was -perfectly tolerant of the joke, and glad to see his <i>protegé</i> cheerful. -Then Harry jumped up from the table, poorly sustained for the business -he had in hand by his light meal, but somewhat anxious to get through -the ordeal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> he had proposed to himself. Antonio, however, who appeared -presently in the well-worn and assiduously brushed costume of a <i>laquais -de place</i>, could not quite let him off the inevitable sightseeing. He -led him to the Duomo and into the great Square with a pretence that this -was on the way to the Consul’s office, and made him look at again, -whether he would or not, the same public buildings which he had gazed at -dreamily as he wandered about the streets the day before, and looked at -languidly in the moonlight under Paolo’s active guidance. He had been -but twenty-four hours in Leghorn, and already he had associations with -the street-corners, which probably he would never forget. Already this -new world was acquiring known features of acquaintanceship; his life -beginning to put forth threads like a spider’s web, and twist and twine, -the new with the old. It startled Harry to feel that he was no longer a -stranger here, where he had landed so forlorn. After the round which -Antonio beguiled him into making, it was about eleven o’clock before -they reached the door over which the well-known British symbol was put -up. The outer office was full of people and business, sea-captains and -merchants’ clerks, and even a few examples of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> kind of traveller who -is most common in Italy, he who travels for pleasure and not for -business. Harry had to wait among the rest who were seeking an audience -of the Vice-Consul. Here Antonio left him, and he could not see anything -like the olive-countenance and brilliant costume of Paolo; but it was an -English group among which he stood. The clerks even spoke English, if -one or two of them displayed the tongue-tied hesitation which is common -to all classes when they speak a language imperfectly understood. One of -the tourists did his best to draw Harry into conversation, lamenting the -cruel fate which had detained him in such a place. He was just starting -for Pisa, this pilgrim said, where there was really something to see. -“One might as well be in Liverpool as here,” he said. Harry did not make -any reply. This was just the reason why he himself approved of Leghorn -more than of any other place he had seen. When it came to his turn at -last, almost all the other appellants and petitioners had been seen and -dismissed. They all wanted something; and Harry’s new acquaintance had -talked and worried him so much with his dislike to a place where there -was so little to see, that he had almost forgot the manner<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> in which he -had arranged with himself to open his own story; when at length -everybody else was despatched, and he had to go forward to his audience. -His heart beat a little faster as he went in. The Vice-Consul was a man -of a portly presence, something like an English merchant of the higher -class, with grizzled hair, and an aspect of great respectability and -authority. He was fully conscious of his dignity as the representative -of the British Government, and of Her Majesty herself, amid an alien and -inferior race. He did not think much of Italy or the Italian people, and -he felt it was his mission in life to keep them down. He was seated in -great state upon a large chair, which swung round with him when he -moved. His table, his papers, the manner in which he appeared over them, -with the air of a judge on the bench, was very imposing to a stranger, -especially when that stranger was in difficulty and came to ask help. He -made Harry a very formal bow, and pointed to a seat near, which had -something of the air of a seat for the prisoner at the bar.</p> - -<p>“What can I do for you?” he said, with a dignified inclination of his -head; after the first glance his look softened. He was used to see a -great many people, and it was a compliment to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> Harry’s appearance that -it interested the Vice-Consul. He almost smiled upon him, with a -benignity in which he did not very often indulge.</p> - -<p>Then it was that Harry’s real difficulties began; but how thankful he -was that it was a true story he was telling, and not a fictitious -account of himself!</p> - -<p>“I came to tell you, Sir,” he said, “of something that occurred last -night—a scrape—that is to say a row I got into. I suppose I must call -it a row.”</p> - -<p>“It is a great pity when strangers get into rows in a foreign town, -Mr.——Oliver. I think you said Oliver?”</p> - -<p>What a fool I was thought Harry!—as he did after every new production -of that name; but his last chance of reclaiming his own was now over.</p> - -<p>“What you say is quite true,” he said, “and I should not have been such -a fool but for urgent cause. I knocked down a fellow who was annoying a -lady. He deserved a great deal more than I gave him; if he had been an -Italian I might have hesitated, but he was an Englishman. So I just -knocked him down.”</p> - -<p>“Very wrong, very wrong,” said the Vice-Consul, “and a curious way of -showing your preference for your fellow-countrymen. But you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> had better -tell me all about it. When did this occur, and where?”</p> - -<p>Harry described the place as well as he could. “There was a lot of -them,” he said. “The Italians—if they were Italians—gave way when I -spoke to them. I’ll do them that justice. The English fellow, I did not -say anything to him. I was not going to argue with a brute like that. I -just quietly knocked him down. It was a young lady and a woman with her. -You see, if I had stood there talking, the others might have been up to -us, and have given her more annoyance. I daresay it did not hurt the -fellow much; and if he’s a man he’ll take it quietly, for he deserved -it; but I thought it was perhaps best to let you know.”</p> - -<p>The Vice-Consul had started slightly when Harry described, as well as he -could, the locality in which this incident took place. Now he asked -quickly, “And the lady—did you know her? and did she get clean away?”</p> - -<p>“Know her!” said Harry, “I only arrived here yesterday; besides I did -not want to know her: it might not have been pleasant for her. We -watched her safe out of reach; indeed we went on till we heard a door -shut where she lived,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> I suppose. No, it was not for that. It was to say -that if the fellow complained, or brought any action, or anything of -that sort—I wanted you, Sir, being the representative of England, to -know the real facts. That is how it was.”</p> - -<p>There was a smile about the Vice-Consul’s mouth. “As it happens I have -heard about it already,” he said. “I’ll speak to you farther on the -subject by-and-bye—Don’t be alarmed, it will do you no harm; sit down -and rest yourself, and wait for a few minutes. I am going in to lunch -presently, and I’ll talk to you then,” the Vice-Consul said. Harry did -not know what to think. The consequences could not be very bad, since -this great functionary restrained a smile; but there was evidently a -second chapter to the adventure. Harry withdrew as he was directed to -the other end of the office, and there stood gazing at railway -timetables, and pictures of ships. There was all about a line of vessels -to America from Genoa which had lately been established, just the very -thing for him if he intended to do what he had been thinking of. But -Harry scarcely knew what he was looking at. All these questions seemed -things of the past. What was the Vice-Consul going to say to him? What -was to come of it? Till he knew this he could not think of anything -else.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /><br /> -<small>THE VICE-CONSUL’S DAUGHTER.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> DOOR in the Vice-Consul’s office opened into a long passage with a row -of windows on one side, which communicated with his house. When the hour -came at which, after the comfortable fashion of leisurely Italian towns, -the office was shut up for the midday meal, the Vice Consul made Harry -an amiable sign to follow. He led him through this passage, which looked -upon a courtyard full of plants, where a fountain trickled in the -sunshine, into a large cool room with all its <i>jalousies</i> closed, and in -which for a minute or two he saw nothing. He was being introduced into a -sort of enchanted country it seemed, unlike anything he had ever known -or thought of; the tiled floor was almost covered with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> soft rugs, -according to a fashion not then known in England, and the furniture -dimly discerned in the gloom, was like rocks at sea to the stranger who -had no chart of the confused and intricate passage. Something white in a -corner, something which moved a little when they came in, was all he -saw, and he could not make out even what that was till his eyes had got -accustomed to the light. Then he perceived with a great tremor and shock -of shyness that it was a lady, a slight girl in a white dress who looked -up to nod to her father, then seeing a second figure behind him, rose -hastily with a shy grace. Harry was still more shy than she was. He was -not accustomed to the society of ladies. And he was dreadfully hungry, -having had nothing but that dry bread and coffee, a circumstance which -made him still more depressed and timid. He did not at all know why he -was introduced so suddenly into this other world. He thought he was only -going to an inner office, or perhaps—but that was a blessedness he -dared scarcely hope for—that the Consul in his kindness had meant to -give him some luncheon. But the drawing-room confused him wholly; he had -done nothing to merit such an introduction. He only half took in -accordingly the meaning of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the words the Consul said, “Look here, Rita, -I have brought your champion of last night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” That purely English exclamation sounded to Harry the sweetest -syllable he had ever heard. The white figure came a step forward. By -this time he began to see through the gloom, and what he saw was a very -young face, with two great dark eyes, lifted to him full of wonder and -pleasure. Then a hand was put out, “Was it you?” she said eagerly. “Oh, -yes, I remember!” And before he was aware the hand, smaller and softer -than any such article previously known to him, touched his for a moment. -Harry dropped into the chair which the Vice-Consul pointed to him in -utter confusion of surprise. He was not even able to notice what an -extraordinary advantage to him such an introduction was. He was simply -astonished more than words could say.</p> - -<p>“This is Mr. Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul. “He came and told me all -about it without a notion who you were. And you see how surprised he is. -He thought, I suppose, I was taking him into a kind of genteel prison. -It must be added that, if you only arrived yesterday, you lost no time -in getting into a row.”</p> - -<p>“Did you only arrive yesterday?” said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> delightful little voice, in -which there was a flavour of something not English, though the English -was perfect. “Oh, how glad I am that you did arrive then! What would -have become of us otherwise? for no one but an Englishman wandering -about the most unlikely places could ever have found himself just -there.”</p> - -<p>“And nobody but an English girl would have risked herself in such a -place,” said the father. “I hope you will take that to heart, my dear. -This girl,” he added, turning to the young man, “is by way of despising -all Italian precautions. She is an English girl, she tells everybody, -and she will not be a slave like the others: and old Benedetta is an old -fool and never goes against her. One of her pensioners was ill last -night, that was why the monkey was out at such an hour. When I am at the -Club there is nobody to put her to bed.”</p> - -<p>“As if I was a little child to be put to bed! It was the dearest old -woman, and she would see me. The priest had been sent for and the -sacraments; could I refuse to go—now could I? And how was I to know men -were so dreadful? But you see, papa, there are always the good angels -about.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“When I was young the angels were all feminine,” the Vice-Consul said, -“and we called the ladies by these pretty names, not the ladies us.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you never did so much for any girl. Oh, how frightened I was -when that man took hold of my arm! and then to hear an English voice as -if it were coming from the skies, ‘Let go that girl!’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“How did the fellow understand, I wonder?” the Vice-Consul said.</p> - -<p>“If I had not been so frightened I should have laughed. They did not -understand a bit! It might just as well have been Greek; but if it had -been Greek they would have understood,” cried Rita, putting her hands -together with grateful enthusiasm. All this time Harry had never spoken -a word; indeed, there had been no opening for him to speak.</p> - -<p>“You must have thought me a big idiot to say anything at all,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh! I thought you—— I won’t tell you what, or papa will say something -disagreeable. It was so grand the English voice; and then their hands -dropped as if I had been fire.”</p> - -<p>“I should have broken every bone in their bodies,” cried Harry, with -unnecessary fervour, “if<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> I had known it was <i>you</i> they touched with -their filthy fingers!” He did not know why he made this violent speech, -which was far from elegant, and quite unsuitable to the refined and -still atmosphere in which he so unexpectedly found himself. As for Rita -she blushed a little, and laughed a little, in the soft green twilight, -finding it not unnatural that he should have been doubly indignant at -the idea that it was <i>she</i> who was in danger. She was accustomed to -believe that anything disagreeable was doubly offensive when it happened -to her, and that she was about the most important little person in the -world. But she was one of the rare people whom such a knowledge does not -spoil. It seemed to her quite simple—was not she her father’s only -child, and only pleasure in life? She had been aware of this fact ever -since she was born.</p> - -<p>“Hush, hush!” said the Vice-Consul; “we must have nothing more about -breaking bones: to knock down one fellow was quite enough. But I am very -much obliged to you, Oliver. I can’t make a stranger of you after this. -My little girl is all I have in the world, and whoever is good to her is -good to me. If you are going to stay in Leghorn, I hope you’ll let me be -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> some use to you; but I don’t suppose that’s very likely. Meantime, -Rita, don’t you think we had better go to lunch?”</p> - -<p>What welcome words these were to Harry! He was excited and pleased by -the adventure altogether; his head was a little turned by the enthusiasm -of gratitude with which he was received, and the atmosphere around this -young creature, who was a kind of mystic half revelation to him. He had -not yet made out her face quite distinctly, and yet he was admitted to -all the privileges of friendship: the strange sensation intoxicated him. -But yet when her father spoke of lunch, all that went out of his head. -Consider that he had eaten nothing but about half a yard of tasteless -bread that day! and it was one o’clock. But Harry was not without -manners; though the pangs of appetite made him faint, he got up politely -and made a pretence at taking leave. Needless to say that the -Vice-Consul was above taking advantage of his position, “No, no, no; we -are going to keep you to luncheon,” he said, with a <i>bonhomie</i> which was -irresistible. Harry thought him the most delightful person in the world, -only a little less delightful than the other unknown being who made him -feel tremu<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>lous and abashed, though so happy. The dining-room was -lighted from the shady side of the courtyard, and there was accordingly -light enough to see by. The meal was not a foreign breakfast, but an -English luncheon of a substantial kind, and it is safe to say that Harry -had never been so happy in his life as when he had taken off the first -fierce edge of appetite, and had begun to be able to enjoy the novelty -and yet the familiarity of this unexpected scene. Mr. Bonamy (which was -the name of the Vice-Consul) without laying aside the dignity as of a -benevolent prince which was so remarkable in him, showed all the -condescension of a thoroughly amiable potentate; and Rita was—— Rita -was something of which Harry had no previous conception. She was about -sixteen—no more. Her face was the face of a child, but lighted up by -two beautiful large eyes which she had got from her Italian mother. She -knew, or seemed to know, everything her father knew, and was used to be -talked to about all that happened. If it were not Joan putting in her -word occasionally in a long discussion when her interference was seldom -received but with either blame or contempt, Harry had never been -accustomed to women who took any<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> share in the conversation going on; -and to hear this child talk bewildered him. She had a slight girlish -figure, a small face almost without colour, the faint sweet flesh tints -of which were thrown up in the most delicate distinctness by the white -of her dress. She seemed all spirit, all life, a creature made of air -and sunshine rather than flesh and blood to Harry. And about himself -there was so much flesh and blood! He listened to the conversation -rather than joined in it, feeling himself an admiring audience rather -than a partaker in their talk. One thing only he felt moved to say, and -that was about his own appetite, which he feared they would think -preposterous. “I feel more like a wolf than a man,” he said. “I hope you -won’t think I’m always like this. I never was abroad before, and I don’t -know the ways. And I had no breakfast but some of their queer bread. -This bread is delightful,” Harry said, with enthusiasm. The father and -the daughter were delighted with him, appetite and all.</p> - -<p>“I am so glad you never were abroad before,” said Rita; “now one sees -exactly what England is like. Oh, yes, papa, you need not laugh. I see -the English green, and the trees waving, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> the winds blowing, all in -Mr. Oliver’s face. And there is a little sound of the sea, and a shadow -of hills—not big mountains, but nice, kind hills with sheep-bells -tinkling——”</p> - -<p>“We have not many sheep-bells, Miss Bonamy, in my country,” said Harry; -“the hills are more grey than green, and there is a great deal of fog in -the winter, and east wind, and rain——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t tell me about the bad things, tell me about what is -pleasant,” said Rita. “The east wind is not so bad as the scirocco, and -the rain is delightful. I know all about that. As for the fog, the -painters say it is more picturesque than anything. They say there is -always a soft delicious sort of haze, and you never see things sharp cut -out against the sky as they look here.”</p> - -<p>“Have you never been in England?” Harry said, with a little surprise; -and then he saw that a shade, a sort of cloud, come over the lively -table, and the two animated faces. Rita shook her head, and then began -to talk quickly to him about the neighbourhood, and all he would have to -see. Harry had protested to his humble friends that he wanted to see -nothing but the shipping, but he did not repeat this sentiment here. He -learned in a moment that to be fond of pictures was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> necessity, and -that there were certain things which every Englishman in Italy had come -expressly to worship. Rita’s opinion “of course” convinced him in a -moment. He never made the slightest stand against it. Henceforward he -knew what was expected of him. When she went out of the room waving her -fingers to him in sign of goodbye, Harry suddenly became quite grave, -and felt all at once as if the light had gone out of the sky. And there -was more than sentiment in this feeling; for now he found himself face -to face with the Vice-Consul, and it was very evident that, so much -having passed between them, something more would now have to be said. -Mr. Bonamy offered the young man a cigar, and, lighting his own, leant -back in his chair, and evidently awaited some further disclosures of his -mind and purpose.</p> - -<p>“You are thinking of staying in Leghorn,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I am thinking,” said Harry, feeling his colour rise, “of trying to get -employment, if I can; a situation of some kind.”</p> - -<p>“Employment!” said the Vice-Consul. It was impossible to deny that he -was disappointed. His voice had an accent which there was no mis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>taking. -Harry had not much refinement or education, but he had an air which -would have been perfectly consistent with the rank of a young squire, an -English country gentleman of simple mind, and no great amount of -culture, travelling for his pleasure, and perhaps with some vague idea -of improvement. Mr. Bonamy, who had received him so cordially, and who -had been pleased to be under an obligation to a young fellow of -attractive appearance and pleasant manners, was more cast down by this -intimation than might have been thought possible. Not a young squire: -nobody in particular: a penniless youth seeking employment. Such -visitors were not rare, but they seldom penetrated into the -carefully-guarded interior of the Vice-Consul’s house.</p> - -<p>Harry felt very much abashed. He was sensible of the downfall. How he -longed to produce the glories of the Joscelyns, and convince his hearer -that, if he was humble now, his family had once sat with princes! -Perhaps Mr. Bonamy might not have been so impressed by these ancestors -as Harry thought; but as it was they looked at each other blankly, -mutually feeling that a great fall had taken place. Harry smiled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> in -that rigid way which is popularly called smiling at the wrong side of -the face.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, “employment. I don’t know that I am very good for -anything: but I have some little acquaintance with—business.”</p> - -<p>This was worse and worse. Had he been possessed of a knowledge of law -business, or military drill, or anything likely to be of no real use to -him, the situation might have improved. But business! book-keeping, and -that sort of thing! no doubt he was a mere clerk after all.</p> - -<p>“You have recommendations, I suppose, from your last employers,” Mr. -Bonamy said, coldly. “I shall be glad if I can be of any use, but——”</p> - -<p>“To tell the truth,” said Harry—he was seized with an outburst of -frankness, feeling a kind of desperation seize him at sight of this cold -withdrawal of the sudden friendship which had made him so happy for the -moment—“to tell the truth I have no recommendations. If anyone will be -kind to me they must take me at my own word. All I have got to say for -myself is that I have quarrelled with my family. I cannot enter into the -question now. I have done it, and that is all I can say; and here I am, -and I must get employment. I am not going to push myself into your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> -acquaintance, Sir. It was an accident, nothing more than an accident; -and probably you thought me a person of more importance——”</p> - -<p>“Importance or not has nothing to do with it,” said the Vice-Consul; and -again his countenance softened. A young man who has quarrelled with his -family is no doubt a person to be lectured and reproved, and brought -back to a sense of duty, but all the same he is quite different from a -commonplace clerk seeking a situation. Harry did not intend to throw any -halo of distinction over his own humble person, but he did it unawares. -Mr. Bonamy’s countenance gradually cleared. “My dear young fellow,” he -said, “I daresay you are impulsive and hot-headed, like so many other -young men. As being under obligations to you, I may allow myself to give -you good advice. No advantage ever springs from family quarrels. My -advice to you is, make it up.”</p> - -<p>“Not for anything in the world,” said Harry, hotly. “I have been -treated—I can’t say how I have been treated. I will neither make it up, -nor will I go near them, or have any communication with them, till I am -altogether independent of them, and have worked out a position for -myself!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You must not be so violent,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, let me -act the part of a real friend. Let me write.”</p> - -<p>“Never!” said Harry, getting up to his feet. “I am very sorry, Sir, to -have troubled you with my affairs.”</p> - -<p>“That is nonsense,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Sit down, sit down, and let us -talk it over. You have been hot-headed, I don’t doubt. What is it now? -tell me. Some foolish falling in love. You must want to marry somebody -they don’t approve.”</p> - -<p>Harry smiled in spite of himself. “I am no more in love than you are, -Sir,” he said.</p> - -<p>“That might be a dangerous affirmation,” said the Vice-Consul, shaking -his head, with a smile which was somewhat melancholy; “but I understand -what you mean. Then was it money? You have been foolish and got into -debt?”</p> - -<p>“It was a little about money; but not because I had got into debt—and -that was the least of it,” Harry said. “You must pardon me, Sir; but -indeed I cannot tell you: it is a complicated business; and I can’t -depart from what I have said. I will never go home, never make it up -till I have made my own fortune. But if you will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> believe me,” he said -earnestly, with a flush of hot colour, “the fault was not mine. I have -nothing to conceal on my side.”</p> - -<p>“Then why conceal it?” said the Vice-Consul. “I cannot act for you -unless I have full information; but if you will trust me with your -story——”</p> - -<p>“I would trust you sooner than anyone I know; but I have promised that I -will never say a word on the subject,” said Harry, with all the -obstinacy of all the Joscelyns in his face, “until—I am independent, as -I have said.” He rose up a second time, all flushed and excited. “I am -going to try my luck at Leghorn,” he said. “I am much obliged to you, -Sir, for your kindness. I have felt myself again since I have been here; -but now I will not trouble you any more.” He held out his hand. He was a -handsome young fellow, tall and strong, with the sunburnt countenance -and well-developed limbs, and curling, fair locks, which are everywhere -identified with a young Englishman. He was not at all like a mere clerk -in an office; he was like a son of the fields and woods, one of those -whose training has been of the kind most prized and appreciated by all -Englishmen—an open-air youth;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> a rider, rower, swimmer, -cricketer—brought up in that way which involves leisure and space, and -all the appliances of country-life. Mr. Bonamy saw all this in Harry’s -vigorous form and movements. He felt sure that he could not be a nobody. -And after all, except that of being a nobody, there is in youth no -unpardonable sin.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be in such a hurry. Sit down again, the office does not open for -another half-hour: and let me hear what there is to be done for you,” he -said.</p> - -<p>This was a question more embarrassing than the Vice-Consul supposed, for -after all there did not seem much that Harry could do. He confessed that -he had almost forgotten what he knew at school, and he had never learned -any modern languages, and could speak no tongue but his own. He had a -little experience in business, he said; but this was the only knowledge -he could lay claim to. The Vice-Counsel did not know what to make of -him; but as he had started with the distinct hypothesis that Harry was a -squire’s son, it was not very difficult to fit in the facts to his -foregone conclusion. Many a young gentleman forgot all his school -learning by the time he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> twenty. The difficult thing was that -knowledge of business which at first Harry had been strongly disposed to -put forward as the only faculty which he knew himself to be possessed -of. How had he acquired that? Mr. Bonamy ended by deciding that he must -have quarrelled with his family some time before, and that his -acquaintance with business had been the fruit of some attempt made in -England to maintain himself before he came here. Thus, without any -intention on Harry’s part, he managed to deceive his first influential -friend. He neither meant to do it, nor was he aware he had done it; but -still this was how things fell out. The conclusion of the interview was -that Mr. Bonamy engaged Harry to come back to him next day, when he -would have thought the whole matter over, and know what to say. They -parted with great friendship and cordiality, Mr. Bonamy having entirely -come round again to his own theory in respect to the young man who had -been so serviceable to his daughter. Everything seemed to prove this, -Harry’s very ignorance among the rest. “In these days every poor lad is -more or less educated; a gentleman’s son, who has something else to look -to than competitive examination, he is the only one that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> escapes that -sort of thing,” the Vice-Consul wisely said. Harry, on his part, went -off to his hotel with greatly exhilarated feelings. He had done nothing, -he said to himself, but make friends since ever he came to Leghorn. To -be sure in the light of the Vice-Consul’s friendship he felt that Paolo -was (as he had always felt) somewhat beneath his pretensions. But still -the poor fellow had been very kind. As he came out by the private door -of the Consul’s house, he saw Paolo at a little distance waiting till -the public door of the Consulate should be open. He saw Harry and rushed -at him, beckoning violently.</p> - -<p>“Komm ’ere, komm ’ere; this is the place,” he said. “Komm along, I will -introduce you, I will respond for you; now is the time to find the -Vice-Consul amiable. He is always amiable when he has well breakfasted.” -He seized Harry by the arm, and tried to drag him back to the Consulate -with an anxious desire to serve his friend which merited a better -return. Harry shook himself free of the little man with good-natured -impatience.</p> - -<p>“I’ve just come from the Vice-Consul,” he said with dignity, “we’re the -best of friends. I’ve been able to be of use to him, and he is going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> -be of use to me. Many thanks to you, Paolo, all the same; but I’ve been -lunching there, and—and I’ve done my business. To-morrow I am to go -again,” Harry said, unconsciously holding his head high. Paolo gazed at -him with eyes and mouth that were like round O’s of wonder. He was much -crestfallen in his honest endeavours to be of service. But he soon -recovered his spirits.</p> - -<p>“Bravo!” he said three times over, each time more satisfied than the -other. Then he rose to a “Bravissimo,” with a smile that lighted up his -olive face. “It would have made me pleasure to be of use to you, Ser -Isaack mio. I would have responded, I would have taken it all upon -me—what you call caution. But you are a true English, like the -Vice-Consul himself, and it is just that you should understand each -other. I am not disappointed—I am happy, very much happy that you have -not any need of me,” little Paolo said, smiling, but with tears in his -eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /><br /> -<small>PAOLO.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">P</span>AOLO came back from his labours in the evening, very curious to know -all about Harry’s interview with the Consul, and the origin and the -result of the acquaintance between them. But Harry was prudent. He was -prudent without any motive, from personal pride, rather than from any -consideration for the credit of Miss Bonamy, which he did not think to -be in the least involved. The women with whom Harry was acquainted were -not of a kind who would have been afraid to go anywhere in the evening, -and it did not occur to him that the reputation, even of a girl, in -Italy would be jeopardized by such an innocent benevolence as that of -going to visit a sick neighbour at night. Therefore it was simply<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> pride -and English reserve, not any notion of prudence on Rita’s account, that -kept him silent on the subject. Paolo had a very different conception of -the affair. He was very anxious to find out what had been the immediate -effect upon Harry’s mind of the visit to the Consul’s house.</p> - -<p>“There is a—young ladi there,” he said, watching Harry’s face. “You see -perhaps, yes? a young ladi, the daughter of the Signor.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I saw Miss Bonamy,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>“And you nevare—see her before?” This Paolo asked with a gleam of -mischief in his dark eyes, and the air of a man who knew a great deal -more than he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, I have met her before,” said Harry lightly. “They were quite -old friends. I did not in the least expect to meet people so like old -friends here.”</p> - -<p>Paolo was bewildered by this speech, and did not know what to think.</p> - -<p>“Ah,” he said in a tone of disappointment. “You know them in your -country? what you call at ’ome? But,” he added with a little triumph, -“there you could not meet Signorina Rita, because she is never to go to -England; her mother die in England, her mother was the daughter of an -English<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> and Italian, like me for example; but she die in England when -she go, all young, when the Signorina was a bébé. The Signor Vice-Consul -was mad—Si! mad, there is no other word. It was a long time that it was -thought he die too—but no, he live, he go on living; but the Signorina -Rita never go to England, that is finished, that is fixed, nothing will -change it. It could not be that you meet her there.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know Miss Bonamy very well,” said Harry with a little offence, -“that you call her by her Christian name?”</p> - -<p>“I say Signorina Rita, it is our custom. If she were an old, I should -say Sora Rita; and the Vice-Consul he is Ser Giovanni, that is our -custom. Ser Isaack you, Ser Paolo me—but not for you, amico. When you -say Paul-o, that pleases me,” and Paolo laughed, showing his teeth, -which were very white and even. He added, after a moment, with a sudden -moistening of his brilliant eyes, “But what displeases me, after -becoming amici, as we are, is not to be able to serve you. I picture to -myself that I will do something; not moche, but yet something. I will -stand up and say, ‘I take him upon myself. He is without papers, but I -take him upon myself—me.’ Now<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> I am without use. It is no matter to you -to have Paolo Thomp-sone for your friend. The Vice-Consul is moche -bettare—he is grand personage; he has power, not only the heart, like -me.”</p> - -<p>“But, Paul-o,” said Harry, anxious to comfort him, and half touched, -half amused by his distress, “but for you I should never have gone near -the Vice-Consul: you put it into my head. But for you,” he added, with a -laugh, putting his hand lightly on Paolo’s shoulder, “I think I should -have turned tail altogether, and wandered off I don’t know where.”</p> - -<p>Paolo’s face shone with delight. He would have rushed into Harry’s arms -had that been practicable, and thrown himself upon his breast. But -Harry, laughing, kept his friend at arm’s length. To have kissed, or to -have suffered himself to be kissed by, any man, seemed to him the height -of ridicule. Paolo, baffled in this impulse, sat down and looked at him -with radiant eyes. “Now I know that we are amici,” he said. “Aspetto! -There is still a way I can serve you. I well teach you to speak the -Italian. You shall know it so well that they shall say, Ecco un -Italiano. Me, I have been to school in Sienna. I know the real -Toscano—the best Italian. We<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> shall begin this moment. That pleases to -you, Ser Isaack?” asked Paolo, tenderly, looking with humble and -deprecating eagerness into his face.</p> - -<p>“You must learn to speak English better,” Harry said, with some -condescension. “I told you before you must not not say an English, but -an Englishman, and to say an old is nonsense—it should be an old woman, -or an old man, whichever it may be.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” cried Paolo, “that is alright, that is understood. You -correct me when I say what is not just, and I teach you.”</p> - -<p>“Come out now for a walk,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>Paolo jumped up alert and delighted. It is true that it glanced across -the mind of the young Englishman that perhaps it was beneath the dignity -of a man who was a friend of the Vice-Consul’s, and thus, as it were, a -member of the best society, to walk about with Paolo hanging on to his -arm. But, though Harry was full of youthful conceits and the prejudices -of an ignorant Englishman, he yet had a heart in his capacious bosom, -and Paolo’s devotion had been so great as to touch that heart. He said -to himself, with a little effusion, that he never would turn his back -upon a little fellow who had been so anxious to help him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> It might be -that it was presumption on the part of the little fellow to think -himself capable of serving Harry, but still it was well meant, and his -undisguised admiration showed a most just and well-judging spirit. -Nothing, he said to himself, would induce him to turn his back upon -Paolo, his first friend. Antonio had given his whole attention to the -two during the course of dinner. He had loitered behind them when he was -not actively pressing upon them all the choicest morsels, to the despair -of various less interesting guests who could not catch his eye, and who -shouted and stamped in vain. He kept shifting from one foot to another -in the restlessness of pure pleasure as he caught now and then a word of -the conversation between them, and rubbed his hands with delight in the -consciousness of being able to understand it. Now and then he would -punch a fat Italian, with whom he was familiar, in the shoulder, and -call his attention. “Ecco il giovane Inglese,” he would say, though -Harry was doing nothing more important than eating his dinner. Antonio -had got his five francs for a very short day, for naturally the time -passed in the Consul’s had given him no trouble except that of waiting, -and what was still more to the purpose than the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> five francs was the -importance of having such a witness to his power of English-speaking as -this new guest, who could arrange nothing for himself without his -(Antonio’s) help. He disregarded even the call of the chief butler, so -absorbed was he in his favourite stranger.</p> - -<p>“Do you wish the young Inglese to starve,” he asked, indignantly, in his -native language, “when you know the Inglesi are the best customers the -padrone has, and always send millions more? Do you propose to yourself -that he should have nothing to eat, this young one that is no doubt made -of gold; and how can he have anything to eat if I am not there to serve -him?”</p> - -<p>Thus he kept behind Harry’s chair with a countenance full of delighted -interest. Now and then he would put in a word. “Ze signori will do much -better to go to ze opera to-night,” he said. “Zey will hear La Catalina, -who is ze first in Italy. It is ze ‘Barbiere,’ Ser Paolo, which gives -itself to-night.”</p> - -<p>Paolo looked up appealingly into his friend’s face, but Harry brushed -the suggestion away with a true British argument. “Oh, for heaven’s -sake,” he cried, “don’t let us go and box ourselves up in a hot theatre -on such a night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Paolo sighed, but obeyed. He repeated the sentiment in a superior tone -to Antonio, who was anxiously serving them with Cigare Scelte, arranged -in different kinds upon a wooden tray. “A hot theatre, Antonio mio! one -does not go there in a so warm evening. That goes well with the winter, -when it is cold; but in summer, we young have need of moche air and the -great world to keep us comfort-able. When you know more of real English -you will learn what they love.”</p> - -<p>Antonio accepted this decision of his superiors with much respect, and -laid it up in his memory, to be produced on his own account when it -might accord with his pretensions as an Anglomane and person of high -sentiment to produce it. But in the meantime he could not but launch a -little criticism to the others who overheard this dignified rebuke. -“That little Paolino,” he said, as they went out, “to give himself the -air of a rich Inglese! He is neither one thing nor another. He is no -more than an abozzo—a sketch of an Inglese,” Antonio cried. He had been -in an artist’s studio in his day. “Me, I understand them, al fondo,” he -added, beating his breast.</p> - -<p>Little Paolo had no notion that he was being called an abozzo. He -sallied forth, lighting his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> cigar, thrusting his arm through Harry’s -with the greatest delight and pride.</p> - -<p>Next day, at the hour appointed, Harry presented himself at the -Vice-Consul’s office, and was received with the same cordiality. Mr. -Bonamy had “made inquiries,” but, as nobody in Leghorn knew anything -about Harry, there was not much information to be procured. Neither did -the captain of the steamer in which he had arrived know anything about -him except that he was a passenger in the second cabin; although he -looked quite superior to the second cabin. “I set him down as somebody’s -son in disgrace with his family,” the captain said. This chimed in -sufficiently well with Mr. Bonamy’s observations. He met Harry after the -first consultation with a grave face. “You know I know nothing about -you, Mr. Oliver,” he said, “except—and that is not much—what you have -chosen to tell me.”</p> - -<p>“That is quite true, Sir,” said Harry, growing serious too, and feeling -his heart sink, “and I have no right to expect you to take my word even -for that.”</p> - -<p>“Therefore,” said the Vice-Consul, “(for you should never interrupt a -man in the middle of a sentence), I have the more claim upon you to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> -treat me in an honourable way. If you had come with all your papers, as -they say in this country, I should not have had the same right to put -you on parole, as it were. If you know no reason why I shouldn’t take -you into my office, and trust you with the Queen’s affairs, I mean to do -so. But if there is anything that would make you a discredit to Her -Majesty’s Service——”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing, Sir,” said Harry, standing up. His face flushed, his -nostril dilated, an impulse of almost fierce self-justification came -upon him; but fortunately for him he was not used to defending himself, -and he could not say another word.</p> - -<p>“Then that is enough,” said the Vice-Consul. “I take you on your own -parole.”</p> - -<p>They were both silent for a minute or two after. It was not like a -common engagement. Harry’s heart was in his throat. What with surprise -at this extraordinary good fortune, and the emotion called forth by a -confidence in him which he could not help feeling to be as -extraordinary, he was quite beyond his own control. If he had said -anything he would have “made a fool of himself,” so he said nothing, but -sat still, almost disposed, like Paolo, to be tearful, which was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> -most dreadful catastrophe he could think of. The good Vice-Consul was a -little affected too.</p> - -<p>“But I don’t know a word of the language,” at last Harry said.</p> - -<p>“We have more to do with Englishmen than Italians,” said Mr. Bonamy. -“Perhaps the fellow whom you knocked down ‘quietly,’ as you told me, may -come and make his complaint to you. Your knocking a man down quietly was -the thing that tickled me. I wonder what was his opinion of it. You must -learn the language of course, and some other things quite as important. -You must find out all about the harbour by-laws and dues, and all that -affects the shipping. These are things we have a great deal to do with. -You must master them, that is the most important thing; and when you -have been here for a little while you will find out other points. Do you -know anyone from whom you can get lessons? But I suppose, as a matter of -fact, you don’t know anyone here.”</p> - -<p>Here Harry, finding his power of speech, told him of Paolo, with that -half laugh of commentary which implies a certain slight of the friend to -whom he had so much reason to be grateful. He felt that it was mean, but -he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> could not help it. How could he help implying a laugh at the droll -little person who held by him so faithfully, yet was so entirely out of -Harry’s way? However, the Vice-Consul took Paolo quite seriously. He -nodded his head with approval. “Nobody better—nobody better,” he said. -“I see you laugh at him; but he is as sound as a bell, that little -fellow, and always rings true. That he is not quite your equal,” Mr. -Bonamy added, “does not matter a bit in the circumstances. I am glad -that you have chanced so fortunately. To get hold by accident of such a -genuine person as Paolo is quite a piece of luck. I rather think you -must be a lucky person,” he added, with a laugh.</p> - -<p>“Since I came to Leghorn,” said Harry, fervently, “nothing could be more -true than that.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think you must be lucky,” said the Vice-Consul, “to hit upon a -perfectly honest person as your first acquaintance, then making haste to -get yourself into a row to have so good an excuse for it as my Rita, and -then——”</p> - -<p>“And then,” said Harry, “to meet with such astonishing, such -unlooked-for kindness, to fall on my feet in such a wonderful way.”</p> - -<p>“Well, perhaps,” said Mr. Bonamy, not dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>pleased, “we may say that was -luck too; and one thing, Oliver,” he added quickly, “it will be so much -the better for you that employment in Her Majesty’s Service is a -disgrace to nobody; mind what I say. Of course, in the nature of events, -you and your family will not be at daggers drawn for ever; and when you -condescend to go back, or they find you out, and come to look for -you——”</p> - -<p>“Neither, neither will happen,” cried Harry, shaking his head.</p> - -<p>“We shall see; but if that day comes, there is nothing for them to find -fault with. A Consulate is not like a merchant’s office; anybody may -serve Her Majesty. None of us, I hope, are too good for that.”</p> - -<p>“I assure you, Sir——” Harry cried, hastily.</p> - -<p>“No, no, you need not assure me. I don’t want to know anything; unless, -indeed, your heart should be opened to tell me <i>everything</i>, which I -should really be glad of. Well,” he said, “come to-morrow morning and -begin. Your friend, Paolo, will tell you about the hours: and I hope, -Oliver, we shall always remain the best of friends,” the Vice-Consul -added, rising and holding out his hand. “I hope nothing will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> happen to -make me entertain a less opinion of you than I do now; that’s -understood. You shall have a card for Rita’s evening at-home, and I hope -you’ll come and see us occasionally in a friendly way. Let us say next -Sunday, perhaps? Sunday’s a dreary day for a young man by himself. Come -after church, and stay for the after noon; for the present, goodbye.”</p> - -<p>Harry took his hat and made his best bow. He was really quite tremulous -with excitement, surprise, and pleasure. To be so speedily and so easily -established was more good fortune than he could realize. When he was at -the door Mr. Bonamy called him back.</p> - -<p>“Oliver!” he cried, “one moment; I would not knock any more men down if -I were you; however quietly it is done, it is a little risky, and Her -Majesty’s Service, you know——”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t fear, Sir; that’s what Paul-o has been preaching to me all -the time,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>Upon which the Vice-Consul laughed benignly.</p> - -<p>“Paul-o, as you call him, is as good an adviser as you could have,” he -said.</p> - -<p>“What should I call him but Paul-o?” Harry said to himself; and he went -off with his head<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> in the air. Lucky! indeed he had been lucky; only the -third day since his arrival and he had a situation and a sort of a home -and friends; to make up to him for all the evil that had happened to him -before, providence was taking special care of him now. Somehow this made -Harry think of his mother, of whom, hitherto, his thoughts had been -scarcely more kind than towards the others concerned; a little moisture -crept unawares to his eyes. “She’ll have been praying,” he said to -himself; and suddenly he seemed to see her, as he had seen her so often, -wringing her thin worn hands, her lips trembling with words that were -inaudible. He thought—it would be hard to trace the exact connection of -ideas, but there was one—that he would go in to the first church in -which there seemed to be service going on, on his way back to the inn. -It would not have occurred to him to go into a church where there was no -service, but when he heard the tinkle of a bell, and saw one or two -people creeping up and down the broad stone steps, he went in, though -with a little opposition in his mind, as well as a certain craving for -sympathy and utterance. But when he went in, Harry saw no signs of -public worship. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> tinkle of the bell was coming from an altar in a -side chapel, where a great many candles were burning. In the body of the -church some people were seated quietly, others kneeling on the low -rush-bottomed chairs. He stood and gazed for a little with mingled -feelings, with a great opposition in his mind to the Papist ritual and -ceremonies (of which he saw nothing, and which, to tell the truth, he -had never seen, and knew nothing whatever about); and disapproval of the -people who were in the church for, as he thought, no purpose—mingled -with a curious sense of the grateful calm and quietness and seclusion of -the place, the serene coolness and breadth of its lofty roofs and silent -space. This stole upon him, he could not tell how. He would not have -knelt down, as the few people about were doing, to save his life: it -would have seemed to him like the famous bowing down in the house of -Rimmon, for the North was very Protestant in those days, and sympathy -with Rome was very rare. He would not even say a distinct prayer in his -heart, which would have seemed like yielding to temptation. But, as he -stood, there rose in him an unwilling devotion, and the thanks that had -been in his mind were perhaps not the less given that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> they were -arbitrarily refused utterance. For Harry’s prejudices were a part of his -training, not anything that originated in himself. When he went away the -moisture came again into the corners of his eyes. His mother was as -Protestant, more Protestant, than himself. She would have thought it -wrong to go into “a Catholic chapel.” She would scarcely have been able -to believe in the existence of a country not given over to all evil, in -which a Popish place of worship was not a Catholic chapel, but an -established church. Oh, the poor people! what benighted darkness they -must be in! she would have said, in her ignorance. But somehow, Harry -could not have told how, he felt as if he had approached his mother in -that foreign place. The silent church, with the silent people in it -praying, made him think of her as he had seen her, with her lips moving -and her hands clasped together. Often again he stole in for a moment to -renew that sentiment, which was so soft and pathetic. He held out -against his mother all the time obstinately, though he knew he was -condemning her to great suffering—and he entirely disapproved of the -church; but for all that the two had some subtle resemblance, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> union -of two things he was hostile to, which went to his heart.</p> - -<p>Paolo came to dinner in great triumph. He had placed a flower in his -button-hole and put on a brilliant new tie in honour of the great event, -and fairly threw himself upon his amico and kissed him with enthusiasm -before Harry could get out of this extremely embarrassing position. -Never young girl blushed more uncomfortably than the young man did as he -drew himself out of his enthusiastic friend’s embrace.</p> - -<p>“What have I done to you that you make no response?” Paolo said, almost -weeping over this repulse.</p> - -<p>“Hold your tongue, for goodness’ sake! Men don’t kiss each other in -England. Whatever you do, don’t be ridiculous,” Harry cried.</p> - -<p>Poor little Paolo was wounded to the heart.</p> - -<p>“I am an English myself,” he said. “Yes, yes, an English<i>man</i>, if you -will; I have not the courage to remember. I am a true English-man; but -it is cruel all the same. Should I then take no notice? when it is the -wish most dear of my heart that will be fulfilled? Always I have said to -myself—if the Santissima Virgin would send a real English-man, not one -that is what you call<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> ’alf-and-’alf, like me. And when it is done, and -my amico whom I have chosen turns out to be he whom I have so much -desired, am not I to show a little that I am glad? I am ’appy that I am -an Italian,” said Paolo, with indignation, “if it is so.”</p> - -<p>And there was a little suspension of intercourse between them. But this -did not last; Paolo was too good-humoured and too tender-hearted to -stand out; he begged his friend’s pardon in less than five minutes. -Harry, whose mind moved more slowly, had not had time to realize that he -had been unkind when this reversal of the position took place. Paolo did -all but weep in his penitence.</p> - -<p>“I am good-for-nothing,” he said, “I am without sentiment, I have no -delicacy nor education. Who can say why you were so magnanimous as to -choose me, me! for your amico? and when you show the true dignity of an -English, me I am so without good-breeding, so common, so devoid of -sentiment, that I become angry! but if you will only forgive me, forgive -me this once——!”</p> - -<p>“It is I who am a brute,” said Harry, penitent in his turn. But Paolo -protested with tears in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> his eyes, and would have thrown himself at his -friend’s feet, or on his neck again, in the excitement of the -reconciliation. And though he was usually very thrifty, calculating -every centissimo, he ordered a bottle of <i>champagne frappé</i> to celebrate -the day. Nothing would prevail upon him to countermand this order.</p> - -<p>“It is a festa,” cried the little man, “and it is a reparation: and we -will drink to our eternal friendship.” Paolo did not know that he was -guilty of plagiarism; he was heroically in earnest, and drank his wine, -which Antonio brought with great pride and many grins, triumphantly in -its pail, setting it on the table before them, and watching its -consumption with the most amiable interest. “And here is for a -bicchierino,” Paolo said, bestowing, a small coin upon Antonio with much -grandeur, “drink thou also the health of Ser Isaack, who is my amico,” -and he held out his foaming glass to touch that of his friend.</p> - -<p>Paolo’s head was turned altogether by these unusual potations; and -Harry’s first office was to see his friend safe home and deliver him -from all the dangers of the streets, on this too triumphant night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /><br /> -<small>THE OFFICE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>ARRY entered upon his work next day, and was in a few hours so entirely -bewildered by the novel character of the questions addressed to him, and -the information he was supposed to possess, that he went to the -Vice-Consul in the evening in dismay. “I don’t know a thing,” he said; -“I never knew before what an ignorant beast I was. It would only be -taking advantage of you if I were to stay.”</p> - -<p>This hasty alarm and anxious honesty of purpose made Mr. Bonamy more and -more certain that he had judged rightly. “Don’t give in in such a -hurry,” he said, “you can’t be expected to know things of that sort -without learning. They are not part of a gentleman’s education. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> -must get your friend Paolo to take you in hand. He is a perfect mine of -information. I have often to refer to him myself. Though he is not in a -very high position, he knows more about these special matters than all -the rest of us put together.”</p> - -<p>And thus balm was diffused over Harry’s sore spirit. But he could not -help asking himself why the inequalities and injustices of this world -should be so marked in respect to Paolo. Why should he not be in a very -high position so far as the Vice-Consul’s office was concerned? He, -Harry, who was an ignoramus and knew nothing, was to have higher pay and -far more consideration than the other, who was a mine of knowledge. It -was true that Harry’s personal sense of superiority to Paolo was noways -weakened—but yet he felt the injustice. He had not been used to enter -into such questions, yet he could not but see that to bolster up the -ignorance of a well-looking Englishman, by the knowledge of a little -oddity of an Italian was somewhat hard so far as the Italian was -concerned. It was, accordingly, with a deprecating tone that he spoke to -Paolo at dinner. It even moved him to a little insincerity. What he had -said to the Vice-Consul in all good<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> faith, and much dismay, he repeated -to Paolo, not meaning it at all. “I don’t know a thing,” he said, “not -one question could I answer. I never knew I was so ignorant. It is very -nice to be settled and have Mr. Bonamy for my chief, and you, Paolo, to -help me through: but a fellow must be honest—and when the beggars come -and ask me things, I can’t go on pretending to know.”</p> - -<p>“You shall not pretend to know, Isaack mio,” cried Paolo, with a beaming -countenance. “Now is just come the moment which I was looking for, which -show that it is good to have a friend. How much does it matter whether -it is you that have it or I that have it? Listen then to me. You think -Paolo Thomp-sone a little nobody, and it is true; but listen—listen to -me. It is not to talk big or to brag that is necessary. <i>I</i> know.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure of that, Paolo,” said Harry, languidly, and with the look of -dejection which was half acting, though he did not intend it. “The -Vice-Consul said so. He told me you were a mine of knowledge. But why -should I pick your brains? Why should I mount up upon you and stand upon -your shoulders, and get all the credit of it? That is not just any more -than<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> the other. I oughtn’t to take everything from you.”</p> - -<p>Paolo could scarcely keep still upon his chair in his delight and -satisfaction. His face glowed and shone with happiness. “Are not you my -friend?” he cried; “all that which is to Paolo is to you, Ser Isaack. It -is my pride. We will begin to-night. It is better than to go out to the -Café to sit and sip Rosolio—to be idle like the others—moche bettare. -You shall come to my room, or I will go to yours—and then the books, -and to write the exercises, and to stoody. Yes, yes—I know. I have been -here all my life—I know moche, almost everything. Then we commence -to-night.”</p> - -<p>“But, Paolo, how am I to accept all that from you? A week ago you did -not know me, and now you are going to sacrifice all your spare time and -your pleasure to me; that is not just, as you say. You must let me at -least,” said Harry, faltering, and, with a glimmering insight which was -quite new to him, watching his friend’s countenance, “you must let me at -least—consider you as—my master, you know; and we must settle—now -don’t be angry—a price.”</p> - -<p>Paolo did not say a word; he turned his face<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> away from his friend and -pretended to go on eating his dinner. There was no need for words to -show how deeply wounded he was. He turned his shoulder to Harry, and -called the smiling Antonio to the other side.</p> - -<p>“Take it away! take it away!” he said in English, “it choke me!” and he -pushed his plate from him.</p> - -<p>“Oh! Signor Paolo! Pertanto é buonissimo; don’t cry, Ser Paolo,” cried -the anxious waiter. “These Inglesi, they are brutes; they have no -sentiment; they give pain without knowing it. Pertanto, you must not -weep.”</p> - -<p>“That imports me nothing,” said Paolo, feebly. “It is again an illusion, -my good Antonio; but I cannot weep much, for it is too deep.”</p> - -<p>“What are you two talking about? when you know I don’t understand your -confounded Italian!” cried Harry, at his wit’s end. “What’s the matter? -what have I done now? you will drive a poor beggar out of his senses! -Good Lord! you’re not a woman, that you should cry for what a fellow -says. I don’t know what you mean by your sentiment and all that; I want -to be honest, and not to take advantage of a good hearted duffer because -he is my friend.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Paolo turned round with the tears still in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“You call me duffere,” he said quickly; “beggare I understand, but -duffere I never heard.”</p> - -<p>“It means,” said Harry, drawing on his imagination, “the best-hearted, -silly kind fellow in the world, always going out of his way to help -somebody, holding out his hand to a suspicious beast the moment he lands -in a strange place, never giving him up though he behaves like a brute, -giving everything like an idiot, but flaring up if you want to give him -anything in return.”</p> - -<p>“Not that, not that,” said Paolo, laying his hand upon his friend’s arm. -“I give you my lofe, and I wait for your lofe in return. If there is a -thing you want I take it upon myself. Siamo amici! is there any more to -say? I know nothing; all is in that. If it is true that I am your amico, -then you are a beggare, you are a beast, you are all bad,” said Paolo, -with flashing eyes, “to be so base as to offer to pay me—money. Ah! -che! che! there is nothing too bad, nothing too dreadful to say. Inglese -brutale! false amico——!” Here he stopped all at once, and gazed -piteously into Harr<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>y’s face. “Forgive me, forgive me, my friend!” he -cried.</p> - -<p>This all happened at dinner, at the <i>table-d’hôte</i>, which fortunately -was not very full that day. There was nobody sitting opposite, which was -a great relief to Harry’s mind; but he could see from the end of the -table the cynical Englishman, who had never taken any notice of him, -giving an amused glance now and then at the group of friends—Paolo -shedding tears into his plate, Antonio, with a face full of sympathy, -tenderly removing it, essaying to console the sufferer. This was a -greater trial to Harry’s temper than even the sentiment of Paolo. He -shot an answering glance of defiance at his countryman, who had never so -much as given the help of a kind word to the stranger.</p> - -<p>“Let’s say no more about it, Paolo,” he said, “you and I are quite -different, you know. I daresay I am a brutal Englishman, but I can’t -help it. That’s our nature. We don’t think so much of a little thing as -you do, and we abhor making a fuss. Perhaps you don’t know what that -means?”</p> - -<p>“I will nevare make a fuss more. I will learn to be a duffere, and do as -you do,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>” said Paolo, in all the tenderness of reconciliation.</p> - -<p>Harry looked at him something as Joan looked at his mother. He had too -good a heart to despise his little friend, and he did not understand -him; but this sentiment was extremely inconvenient and very -troublesome—on that point there could be no doubt.</p> - -<p>However, later in the evening, Paolo, who had inherited all the Italian -thrift, gave his friend some very sensible advice. Instead of going to -the Café, they went to Paolo’s <i>appartamento</i>, which was on the highest -floor of a high house in one of the narrow streets. Though he called it -an <i>appartamento</i> it was a single room, with an odd little closet in the -shape of a kitchen, and offices attached to it. The room itself was -somewhat low in the roof, being so high up, but had three or four -windows, and a little balcony suspended over the street, into which it -made Harry dizzy to look down as into an Alpine ravine. The floor was of -tiles, the walls white, with a pattern in distemper, very graceful and -flowing, round the top and bottom. The bed was a very tiny and bare -article, put away in a corner. In another corner stood a table. A few<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> -chairs, and an old, very straight-backed settee, with two arms, in old -gilding and brocade, stood against the wall. There was a tall, brass -<i>lucerna</i>, the lamp common throughout Italy, with its little bundle of -snuffers and extinguisher and scissors to trim the wick, hanging from it -by a chain, and a few books on a shelf. Nothing could be more bare. -There was a small rug by the bedside, but no other covering for the bare -area of tiles which was the chief feature in the room. Paolo had a -little picture of the Madonna, a bad copy of that which is called the -Madonna del Granduca, and a basin for holy water over his bed, which was -covered with a red and blue cotton coverlet. Everything about showed the -same bareness and absence both of comfort and ornament. But Paolo -regarded his <i>appartamento</i> with eyes full of pleasure. He saw nothing -wanting in it. It housed him sufficiently of nights, and was cool and -pleasant in the summer mornings, when he rose, as most Italians do, in -the early daylight, to get through all the private work he might happen -to have. He looked round upon it with a gentle complaisance. Some old -prints, and one or two copies of famous pictures, hung on the walls. In -the best light was an old painting of a gloomy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> and uncertain aspect, -which Paolo believed to be a Margheritone. It might have been anything. -He was very proud of it. “Ecco!” he said, when they went in, “my old -master. He is a little dark, but when you study him you will find much -in him. He is of the <i>trecento</i>—very early—very early. The painter -have seen the blessed father, San Francesco; that indicates how old it -must be.”</p> - -<p>Harry did not make any reply to this. For his part he liked things -better for being new. The dark old picture had no charm for him at all, -and he thought the <i>appartamento</i> rather worse as being larger than his -own little room at the hotel, which had hitherto seemed to him the last -example of bareness and dreariness. “A horrid little hole,” more adapted -for a dog than a man.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you one other thing,” said Paolo, taking him affectionately -by the shoulders before they sat down by the table; “if you will make -economies, and do well, Isaack mio, you will not live always in the -hotel. Me I dine there; it is the best thing to do; but live all the -time—oh no! It is only for Englishmen to be so extravagant like that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“That is what I have been thinking,” said Harry, “if I could get some -nice rooms. You don’t understand about Englishmen. Dining every day at -an hotel is a thing nobody would think of in England. We have our dinner -at home, or, if the landlady is not a good cook, then perhaps—But for -my part I always preferred a beefsteak at home, even if it were not the -most perfect cookery in the world. Dining at an hotel is a thing no one -thinks of, except on a great occasion perhaps.”</p> - -<p>Paolo opened his eyes in surprise. “It is well,” he said, “you are more -prudent when you are in your own country. This is what you must do, -Isaack, amico. You will first find an <i>appartamento</i>. It is not always -that one is so fortunate as me. This is perfect—non é vero? It is all -one could want. A bed—ecco! a table, the sof-fa that has come from a -palazzo, even a little tabouret for the feet—everything. And then the -balcone! When it makes warm in the summer, in July and Agosto, it is, -oh! fresco, freschissimo so fresh and cool here! The first thing is an -<i>appartamento</i>. But in every way I am too fortunate. As soon I dress in -the morning, there is a caffè in face—you can see it if you look -down—where I can have my coffee in a moment. No waiting as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> when you go -to a distance, but at the moment. They are about to send us now the -coffee, amico, to clear our head. You will see how good it is. Then when -the time come for the other breakfast—what you call lunch—there is a -restaurant near the bureau. You have two very good dish, a dolce, and -dessert; and very little to pay. I will lead you to-morrow to that -place. And at last the dinner at the Leone. Figure to yourself so much -comfort all in one day! And you see the journals for nothing, and hear -what all the people say.”</p> - -<p>“Bless us all,” said Harry, “in that way you are never at home.”</p> - -<p>“At ’ome! I am at ’ome everywere,” the little Italian said; “all is -friends; whatever goes on, everyone makes part of it to me. And when all -is over you mount in your <i>appartamento</i>, you are tranquil, you light -your lamp, you fume slowly your cigar on the balcone, you go to bed. And -you make economies—great economies. Me even, that have not moche -appointment, I become a little rich, what you call at my ease. And you, -who will have moche more as me——”</p> - -<p>“Why should I? You are a great deal more use than I am,” Harry said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> - -<p>Paolo shook his head with a cheerful yet shrewd acceptance of the -position. “Si, I am of more use,” he said. “I am good for something; -you, caro, not good for moche yet. But look at you and look at me. That -expliques itself. That is the world’s way—what you call the world’s -way. Come; the first thing is an <i>appartamento</i>. You think, perhaps, it -is too high up here? But smell the good air,” cried Paolo; “that is of -itself refreshing—and the view! You will pay more scudi at the Leone in -a week than for a month here. Ecco! here is the coffee, and though it is -not yet quite dark, that amiable garzone, see, he has brought us a -lamp.”</p> - -<p>Then there entered, with a knock at the door, the man from the caffè -opposite, holding upon the points of three fingers a tray containing two -heavy cups of white porcelain and the small coffee-pot, flanked by a -plate of cakes, which Paolo’s hospitality had added in honour of his -friend. The waiter swung the lighted lamp in the other hand, holding it -by the handle at the top, and in this way had come up five flights of -stairs without spilling a drop of the coffee or jeopardizing the cups. -He put the lamp on the table with a “Felicissima notte, Signori,” -looking upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> two young men with looks as amiable as his wish. And, -indeed, the wish has more reason in it at the beginning of the evening -than at the end. Paolo was great as a host. He poured out his black -coffee as if it had been the richest of drinks, and pressed upon Harry -the odd little collection of cakes of every possible and impossible -flavour. Some of them were excellent, but Harry thought he despised -these innocent dainties. And he was not very fond of the black coffee: -how much better he would have liked an English cup of tea! As he sat -turning over the books which Paolo placed before him, and listened to -his friend’s explanations, gulping, with a great effort not to make a -wry face, occasional mouthfuls of coffee, there seemed to flit before -him a vision of his mother’s parlour—the fragrant tea, the rich fresh -cream, and herself, with that pale face which had not always seemed to -him so attractive as it did now. Once, to tell the truth, Harry had -thought his mother and sister heavy company, and in his heart had said -that nothing could be more dull than the long evening in the parlour at -home. Now that he was up here so near the sky in Paolo’s <i>appartamento</i>, -his ideas were different. The bare tiles underfoot, the wide, vacant -space,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> with the little bed in the corner, the dull old Margheritone -staring him in the face, with a pair of round eyes looking out from its -blackness—and all those knotty questions about the harbour dues to -occupy him, made as great a contrast as could be conceived to the old -curtains and carpets, and familiar walls, and cheerful fire, and the -grey sweep of landscape showing from the windows, stretching far into -the horizon. But he himself. Harry was very much the same, and in the -one place as in the other he was unsatisfied. He thought it had been his -surroundings that were to blame in the first instance, but now, after -the excitement of all this new beginning, and the novelty of his new -friends, and the new place, so unlike anything he had seen before, -Paolo’s <i>appartamento</i>, and the thought of settling down in another -such, brought him back, with a sort of mental gasp, to himself. Was that -all that was to come of it? It was scarcely worth while renouncing his -name and his family, and all his past, in order to settle down in a room -upon the fifth floor, among the chimneypots, at Leghorn. While he was -studying the dock regulations and harbour laws, his mind was busy about -this other perplexing question. An <i>appartemento</i>! Was he never, he -wondered,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> with an impatience that was almost comic in the humiliation -and depression it caused him, to have a sitting-room again? never to get -a meal save in public, in the grim <i>sala</i> of the Leone, or in a gaudy -restaurant with little marble tables; never even a cup of tea to himself -in his own place, as an Englishman loves to have it; never to have a -carpet under his feet, but cold tiles; and nothing in the world that -looked like home? He kept all this to himself, and tried hard to grasp -at the laws and regulations about the free port of Leghorn, and its -etiquettes and its dues; but his inner soul was crossed all the time by -impulses of ill-humour and disappointment which he could with difficulty -restrain. It is always difficult, after a period of agitation and -excitement, to settle down again and resume a steady routine; and Harry -could not think of this kind of settling with anything but annoyance. -The inn was not any better. His little sleeping-room there was not so -good as Paolo’s. In the <i>sala</i> there was always a sense of dinner -combined with cigars; and in the other parts of the establishment the -smell was of cigars impregnated with soup and divers odours of the -kitchen. And these were the only places where he, with his English -habits,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> had a chance of sitting down! He sighed for his little parlour, -with its Kidderminster carpet, and red moreen curtains, at Liverpool. It -was a palace to the <i>appartamento</i>, or anything that seemed possible -here.</p> - -<p>They sat so late over their books that Paolo did not as usual insist -upon accompanying Harry to the inn door. Paolo, for his part, had spent -a very happy evening. He was learned in those bye-laws which so -mystified Harry, and loved to enlarge upon them, and to impart -information in any shape was a grateful exercise to him. He liked to do -it, even when he was not—which he liked still better—doing a kindness -to a friend; and he was proud of all the possessions which he had -exhibited with such simple pleasure. It did not occur to him that his -home, which he was so happy in, or the simple routine of life which he -had set up for imitation, could fill any heart with dismay. He found -himself perfectly comfortable in it, why should not his amico do the -same? No doubt of the suitableness of this life to one as to another -crossed his simple mind. He crunched the biscuits which Harry disdained, -and drank the black coffee at which Harry made wry faces, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> was much -pleased with himself, and very happy to think that he was setting before -his friend the best way to walk in. He was scarcely so pleased with -himself however when he was over-persuaded to allow Harry to go back to -the hotel alone. “No, I will re-conduct you,” he had said at first; but -Harry laughed at the unnecessary ceremony. Paolo stood at the top of the -great black well of a staircase and held the lucerna to light his friend -downstairs, standing patiently with the heavy lamp dangling from his -hand till he had heard the door close at the foot; and then he rushed to -his balcony to watch lest Harry should turn the wrong way, ready to -scream out to him if he did so. Even when he had made sure that his -friend had turned to the right, and not to the left, Paolo still shook -his head. “I should have re-conducted him,” he said to himself. It was -the only drawback to the perfect blessedness of the night.</p> - -<p>It was a glorious night out of doors; the Italian moon was shining with -a warmth and glory unknown to northern skies. Harry tried to think the -moon was as fine in England, but he could not succeed in this; -everything else was a great deal better in England, but there was -something to be said for the climate here, one was forced to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> -admit—even though one might not admit anything more. Harry walked home -(as he called it by force of nature) with much subdued irritation and -despondency, consequent chiefly on the apparent impossibility of ever -having a sitting-room, or any place it would be pleasant to sit in -again. The inn, though he called it home, was not less obnoxious to him, -and he asked himself, good heavens, was it possible he should never—— -He had got as far as this when another picture suddenly rose up before -him, and in a moment changed all his thoughts. It was of a dim room, -cool and dark in the midst of the sunshine, with a whiteness of floating -curtains about the windows, and tables covered with books, and a white -figure in a corner, close upon the open dark space of a window closed by -green persianis, through which the air was blowing softly. Ah! he said, -drawing a long breath, there was a kind of paradise! That was very -different from the <i>appartamento</i>. It was dark in his memory, as it had -been when he had suddenly stepped into it out of the bright day with so -much surprise that he could but dimly recollect the appearance of the -place. He wondered how it would look when the persianis were open,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> when -the daylight got in, or at night when the lamps were lighted, when the -place was fully inhabited?</p> - -<p>Instinctively, without knowing what he was about, he turned into the -street which led to the Consulate. His heart gave a jump against his -breast when he saw that the persianis were all opened now, and that the -lights in the room made it partially visible from the street. Evidently -there was a party going on, and he felt a little pang of mortification -to think that he had not been asked. There was a sound of music and a -great deal of talk, talk that sounded exhilarating and delightful to -Harry, though he would have felt himself a fish out of water had he been -in the midst of the polyglot conversation that went on in the Consul’s -drawing-room. A white figure was seated near the window, faintly visible -within the white curtains. He wondered if it was <i>hers</i>? He screwed his -eyes together as if he had been short-sighted, to try to see a little -better, but this was what he could not make out. The sudden glimpse of -this little bright world from which he was shut out arrested Harry all -at once in his discontented thoughts. Here was something which would -make up for all deficiencies.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> He stood for a long time under the -windows, trying to hear the voices within, with no eavesdropping -intentions, but only to console himself by the recollection that he had -far more in common with the Vice-Consul’s house and his society than -with Paolo, though he was so good a friend. And then he stood opposite -and watched, seeing figures vaguely glide across the room, figures which -the white curtains, swaying softly in the air, kept indistinct. He could -not distinguish her, he allowed to himself; sometimes he thought he had -traced her, but only to find himself deceived. Some one in the -background was playing the piano softly, though nobody paid much -attention. Harry could not tear himself away from the window. That was -life, he thought to himself; a man who had that house to go home to need -never be dull; and then he remembered, with a glow of warm satisfaction -and pleasure, that on Sunday, no further off, he was to go there. He -turned after this with a resolute step, and went back to the hotel and -his dreary little room, where he sat on his bed, gazing at the two -little lights of the lucerna which had been given to him to light -himself upstairs, for all the house was dark and at rest before he got -back—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> thinking of that warm and cheerful scene. The lamp burned on -steadily, the only light in all the big hotel, and Harry sat and gazed -at it unwinking. Sunday afternoon! here was something to look forward -to. And <i>that</i> was a house which was worth calling a home, which was not -an <i>appartamento</i>. He thought life must have an altogether different -complexion there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE BONAMYS.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. BONAMY, the Vice-Consul, was a man who ought to have filled a very -different position. He ought to have been Consul-General and a person of -importance. He had been long in the service, and he had done good work, -and there was nothing against him. But there are some people who never -will “get on,” whatever may be the circumstances in their favour, just -as there are some whom all the adverse circumstances in the world will -not keep down. He was rash, as may have been seen by his reception of -Harry, and he was one of those men upon whom experience has no power, -who never learn—who having been deceived twenty times are just as ready -to believe and be imposed upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> twenty-first. His own goodness and -rectitude were such that he had kept his position fairly, and his talent -and fine faculties had not been without acknowledgment; but he had not -“got on.” There was another circumstance too which kept him in his -present position. His history had been briefly told by Paolo, and was -one which everybody knew. Eighteen years before he had married a -beautiful girl, the daughter of an English merchant in Leghorn and his -Italian wife. They had lived together for a year, and the little Rita -had been born, when young Bonamy took his wife “home” with great delight -and pride to exhibit her to his friends. She had scarcely touched -English soil when she fell ill; it was an ungenial season, and the -Italian girl was of a delicate constitution. The young husband, to whose -mind danger or death never presented themselves as possible, always rash -and venturesome, and ready to trust any gleam of sunshine, had been to -blame in exposing her to the severities of the spring changes and the -east winds, and the result was that he who had left Leghorn in the full -zenith of happiness, returned a miserable man, alone, leaving his -treasure in an English grave. For years after he had been so stunned<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> -with his grief that he was capable of little but the routine of -necessary work, and this period of deadly depression occurred just when -there might have been hopes of promotion for him. He did not want any -promotion. When he began to revive with the growth of his little girl, -and to find in her a substitute for the young mother whom he had -scarcely had time to know, it became a settled principle, almost a -superstition in his mind, that Rita must never leave her native soil; -she, at least, should never be exposed to those east winds and chilling -mists of England. It became a part of the training he gave her, a part -of the religion which everybody round was bound to. Whatever happened, -Rita was not to leave Italy; the risks her mother had succumbed to were -never to touch her. His living, his expectations, his life itself, were -nothing in comparison with this. He was not a man of a strong mind, as -may be easily perceived. There was but one thing which was utterly -precious to him, and that was naturally the first thing in his thoughts. -She throve here in the place where she had been born, just as her mother -had done before her; and if she were removed she would die. This made -him accept cheerfully the neglect of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> superiors; and he had made -himself many friends in the place he had inhabited so long. The whole -population knew him and his story, and sympathized, with the ready -warmth of the race. It was known even to the dock-labourers, to the -sailors in the port, that the Signorina Rita was never to go out of -Italy. The people were all profoundly interested in her in consequence. -It was a compliment to them, to their genial skies, and the health of -the town, and the excellence of everything Italian, not to say -Livornese, which went to their hearts; and the Vice-Consul and his -daughter found themselves very happy in the place, which he would have -left long ago had he been a more prosperous man.</p> - -<p>This consoled him greatly for not getting on; indeed, he had lost -ambition altogether, and given up all thought of advancement; he was -satisfied with his life such as it was. It was a pleasant life enough, -no press or hurry of business, no excessive responsibility, a friendly -society round him, a number of people looking up to him, a kind of -representative position which pleased his fancy. The shipping and the -sea-captains who occupied so much of his time were not perhaps quite so -delightful, but then there are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> some drawbacks in every lot. He had a -pleasant house, which he had gradually filled with furniture and -pictures such as might have made a connoisseur’s mouth water, and he had -plenty of leisure time to enjoy the society of his daughter and of his -friends. Unconsciously he had trained Rita to be his constant companion -and confidant. He had not intended so to do; there had been no desire in -him to withdraw her from younger companions, to keep her to himself; but -when an intelligent child is made the companion of a mature mind, which -is yet not too mature, but still capable of something of the -indiscretion of youth, there is a charm in the intercourse which nothing -else can equal. To a girl especially the attraction is great. Rita, -almost before she had given up dolls and baby-houses, had begun to see -the bigger world in glimpses through her father’s eyes. She began to be -aware of a universe full of people, full of humour and meaning, -appearing behind like an inexhaustible background. And if she did not -absolutely find out books by the same means, yet she made the discovery -of most things that were beautiful and important in them. His opinions, -his ideas represented a whole new heaven and new earth to her, before -which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> nursery and its childish joys faded away. She had begun to -know what he knew, to give an adoring echo to all his opinions, to -understand his occupations, when other children are still resisting -their first lessons, and resenting the interference of grown-up persons -with all their pleasures. The Vice-Consul confided all his difficulties, -when they arose, to her ears before she was twelve. She knew that the -“F.O.” was sometimes unreasonable, and that the shippers were -troublesome, before she had quite mastered English, which was not her -native tongue. Then there came a further development, when Rita no -longer echoed her father’s opinions, but had ideas of her own. This -followed so quickly upon the first, and added such a delightful variety -and animation to their intercourse, that the Vice-Consul fully believed -she had been a critic in her cradle, and that all her lively views upon -things in general had come to her direct by inspiration from above.</p> - -<p>She was seventeen now, though she looked younger. For five years she had -been everything that a grown-up companion can be, with something besides -that no grown-up companion ever was. They were everything to each other. -She reverenced him, and she laughed at him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> and patronized his ideas, -and thought him the first of created beings. Nothing but a child could -so mingle veneration and superiority, the freedom of an equal, the -keenness of a critic, the enthusiasm of adoring love. There was not a -thing he said which she could not pull to pieces, nor any of his actions -that were not subject to her comments. “I would not have done that, -papa, if I had been you,” she would say; and yet she was of opinion that -of all human creatures there was not one, on the whole, who came within -a hundred miles of Her Britannic Majesty’s Vice-Consul at Leghorn. This -was the result of Rita’s observations during the dozen years or so which -she had unconsciously spent in accumulating materials upon which to form -an opinion. And this was no small thing to say, for a clever child is -the most close of observers, and far less likely to be blinded by -partiality than any other human critic. As for the Vice-Consul, he had -no such foundation of commonsense and close observation to support his -certainty that such another as his Margherita had never been born to -man. He worshipped his child without any reason at all. If she had been -stupid, perhaps even if she had been unamiable, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> would have loved her -all the same; but he took it for a special instance of the goodness of -God towards him that she was delightful, and lovely, and sweet, and -clever—as well as that she was Rita, which last, however, was the chief -and unspeakable claim to his love.</p> - -<p>And the house in which these two lived together was a very happy house. -It is the privilege of girls to exercise this sweet reconciling power, -to make a father, or a mother, at peace with fate, reconciled to all the -troubles of the past. Perhaps it is inconsistent with the greater -self-assertion of young manhood to give so much thought, so much care to -the elder generation; certainly it is only here and there a -preternaturally excellent youth who ever fills such a place in the home -and the life of his parents as Rita filled to her father; and she was -not preternaturally good, but mischievous, and contradictory and -impetuous, as well as bright, and tender, and gentle. She never tried to -make her father happy, or thought of doing her duty to him, but only -loved him and lived with him in the most natural unconscious freedom of -word and thought. People may pass years under the same roof without ever -living with each other; but Rita poured<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> her young abundant life into -the stream of her father’s without thinking that any other channel was -possible. Everything that the one did was interesting to the other, -everything that happened contributed to their more perfect union. It had -never occurred as yet to either that this life of theirs might change or -undergo any transformation until the time should come when it would be -split in twain by death; and that was a contingency which, as applying -to herself (to think that her father might die had scarcely occurred to -her), seemed to Rita the least likely of all possibilities, while he, on -his part, if he ever took it into consideration, did it tranquilly, -thinking of his own death, as men in the midst of their lives, with good -health and no appearance of failing, do think of that event, as of -something too far off to trouble one’s-self about—inevitable, and -bringing its own atmosphere of resignation with it, but too shadowy and -distant to disturb anybody’s peace.</p> - -<p>It may be imagined that the event of Harry’s appearance was much -discussed between these two, who discussed everything. Rita had been -very grateful to Harry; she had exalted him into a hero. The description -she had given to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> her father, when she came rushing to his side on the -night of the occurrence, white and panting after her run home, had been -that of a demigod. She had described him as tall and straight as an -arrow, towering head and shoulders over the common creatures about. She -described the little voice in Italian which she had welcomed joyfully -enough, and which had begun to intercede with her assailants with a -troubled tone of politeness, and how it had been suddenly broken short -by the strenuous English of the deliverer. Rita, when she got over her -fright, cried and laughed together over the incident. She made it into a -dramatic scene, setting Paolo’s tremulous entreaties to music—and then -broke in upon the cadence with short sharp English monosyllables, “Let -go that girl!” She put the most flowery Italian into Paolo’s mouth, then -brought the other voice in, strong and brief in a masculine monotone. -She did nothing but repeat this little entertainment all the evening -after she had got over her fright, and when her father appeared with the -hero, looking somewhat sheepish, but very strong, very English, and more -good-looking than might have been hoped, Rita had been delighted. She -did not take, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> the accident romantically, or with any -high-flown interest in her deliverer. Discussing him afterwards, she -allowed that he did not look particularly brilliant.</p> - -<p>“But what of that?” she cried. “Heroes never need to be clever. It is a -great deal more than we deserve that he should be so good-looking. He is -very good-looking, handsome and heavy, just like a hero,” Rita said, -“and with a story! It is a great deal more than we had any right to -expect.” But the story itself did not make any such impression upon her -as it did upon her father. Rita was cynical for the first time, and did -not think much of the quarrel with the family. “There are so many -stories like that,” she said, bending her brows a little; “it saves a -great deal of explanation. But he is not clever enough to have invented -it. He would have blushed and stammered, and even you, papa, could have -found him out.”</p> - -<p>“Even I!” said Mr. Bonamy; “you speak as if my stock of intelligence was -the smallest you knew.”</p> - -<p>“Not that,” said Rita, laughing, “but you know you are very easily taken -in, papa; oh, yes, you cannot deny that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You make a great deal out of a very little,” said the Vice-Consul, -almost angry; for it was his weak point, and consequently he was very -susceptible to criticism. “Besides,” he said, in his usual tone, “when I -am taken in, as you say I am, it is by regular humbugs, professors of -the art. There was that fellow from Geneva, was there ever a better -get-up? he would have taken in old Pam himself.” This was his synonym -for astute and wary wisdom, as some people say Old Nick. “But Oliver has -not a bit of get-up about him. Whatever he is, he is genuine, the least -experienced could see as much.”</p> - -<p>“I told you,” said Rita, “he is not clever enough to have invented a -story; you always come round, papa, to what I say.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said the Vice-Consul, “I <i>am</i> a great fool about you, Rita, -everybody says that; no, he is not clever enough for a made-up story; -and he is so much in earnest about it that it must be true.”</p> - -<p>Rita did not reply. She had no desire to prove that her father was -wrong: and, besides, for once in a way her observations confirmed his. -She recalled to herself the big young fellow, with his ingenuous looks, -and that air of confused and deprecating surprise, as if he could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> -understand why they should make so much of him; a humbug (she concluded) -would have made the most of himself, and shown no surprise.</p> - -<p>“Of course he will not be able to keep it up,” Mr. Bonamy said, “they -will find him out. By the way, remember to keep a look out in the agony -column, they will appeal to him through that. I. O.; they are rather -queer initials.”</p> - -<p>“What does I. stand for?” Rita asked.</p> - -<p>“Isaac Oliver. It is an odd sort of name too for a young fellow like -that.”</p> - -<p>“Isaac! I don’t believe it can be his right name. He is no more like an -Isaac than I am. Isaac ought to be a sort of soft old man, very nice and -gentle, but a little silly, like Isaac in the Bible.”</p> - -<p>“My Rita, you are rather profane. Now it sounds to me like an old Jew, -which is to say an old humbug, up to everything, flattering and fawning, -and ready to sell his soul if he had one.”</p> - -<p>“It is you who are profane, papa; my Isaac, of course, was an old Jew; -they were all Jews, all those people in the Bible: but he was more like -you, a great deal, for it was he that was taken in. <i>That</i> cannot be his -right name.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Whose right name? you jump so from the Bible to yesterday that you are -confusing. I am obliged to you for the compliment about the patriarch. -And as for our young fellow, I think it very likely that Oliver is not -his name; but an <i>alias</i> is seldom carried so far as the Christian name; -he must be Isaac, I am afraid, though it is disenchanting.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Mr. Oliver,” Rita said. “There is not very much enchantment about -him anyhow. Yes, yes, he is just the right thing for a hero: but there -ought to be something behind, he ought to be a little clever, or witty, -or poetical, or something, before there can be any enchantment. Oh yes, -it was quite right to ask him for Sunday. He will be very -tranquillizing, quite Sunday fare.”</p> - -<p>“That was what I thought,” her father said. “You will try all your arts -upon him, you will turn him inside out. In half-an-hour you will find -out more than I would in a day.”</p> - -<p>“I shall not want to find out,” said Rita; “if he is so secret, why -should I try to penetrate his mystery? Mysteries, papa, I have often -told you, are seldom worth finding out.” And they both laughed at this -utterance of wisdom: but yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> there was a kind of understanding, at all -events on Rita’s side, that it was she who was the most prudent of the -two.</p> - -<p>Harry met them at church on Sunday morning. There were a great many -people at the English Church, and they had the usual look of -sectarianism and conventicalism which a small foreign community, holding -its select little “diet of worship” (as we say in Scotland) in its -separate church, in the midst of a large Catholic community, always has. -It is hard to understand why the mere fact of not being able to say our -prayers along with the mass of our fellow-creatures, should give -everywhere that look of narrow superiority, yet lurking sense of -disadvantage. Amid all the salutations at the church-doors, which showed -how the little community hung together, Harry was shy of penetrating the -mass, and held himself modestly apart, waiting in the background till -his friends disengaged themselves from the crowd. A stranger was more -remarked in that close circle than he would have been in towns more -frequented by tourists; and his appearance was so distinctively, almost -so ideally English, that he caught a great many eyes. A tall young -fellow, muscular and strong,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> with curling fair hair, a light moustache, -a ruddy complexion, and an English made coat, at once attracted the -attention of the merchants and officials who made up the congregation. -Who was he? When the Vice-Consul was seen to go up to him, and he walked -off by Rita’s side, their fellow-worshippers soon came to a distinct -conclusion on the subject. He was some young English swell who had -brought letters from influential persons at home, and whom Mr. Bonamy -would naturally make the most of. That was the best of an official -position, was the commentary of more than one looker-on—that the best -people were always sent to you—that whereas all the straggling tourists -who were nobody, were recommended by troublesome acquaintances to -ordinary residents in a town, the Consul had all the people of -distinction, and though he himself held no particular rank, made -acquaintance, and occasionally formed alliances, with very superior -people indeed. Many looks were in consequence cast after Harry, as very -happy, yet very humble, he walked off by Rita’s side. He thought that it -was he who had the advantage, while the spectators considered him a -distinguished visitor, and envied the Vice-Consul, whose position made -his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> house the natural head-quarters for such fine people. He walked -through the shady streets, saying very little, feeling himself quite -happy without speech, and it seemed to him like the repetition of a -dream when he came in again to the cool dining-room, and sat down once -more between the father and daughter. It was only a few days since he -had done that for the first time, coming in, like a man in a dream, to -find an unknown world opened to him. Now the world was no longer -unknown, he had got his place in it, he had the prospect before him of -knowing it better and better, it was his home, as it was that of the -others.</p> - -<p>With a strange feeling of security and continuance he took his place at -the table. He was never a great talker, and he allowed his entertainers -to talk over him, not being so quick to understand their allusions, and -all the shades of meaning in their rapid conversation, as he would have -wished. Sometimes Rita would turn to him with a pleasant word, bringing -him into the current, sometimes Mr. Bonamy would say something that made -an answer needful; but for the most part he was silent, taking his share -only with looks. He did the best he could for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> himself by this means, -for his face was bright, brighter perhaps than his intelligence, and he -had the pleasant art of being interested, whether he quite understood or -not. His look, which was half wistful, half understanding, with a little -eagerness in it, a desire to follow what was being said, and a naïve -comprehension that it was slightly above him, caught Rita’s attention in -spite of herself. So far as she was aware, this young woman was more -fond of intellectual people and their discourse than of anything else in -the world. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was her preference -for this kind of society, her disdain of trivial minds, and the common -chatter of the everyday world. And she had already expressed her opinion -about Harry, that he would do very well for a hero of the muscular kind, -but as for any special interest, a man required something more, a touch -of poetry or intellect, or at least, if nothing else, cleverness, to -recommend him to the attention. It happened, however, two or three times -over, that when Rita’s eyes were travelling the length of the table to -meet her father’s, with whom she was talking, they were caught by -Harry’s, who sat at the side. Harry had uttered nothing that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> was not -commonplace, and, indeed, he had not said much at all; but when he thus -caught her eye, and forced her to look at him, his face was more -eloquent than his tongue. It was not at any time an unmeaning face, and -to-day it meant a great deal; it meant a conviction that he was very -happily placed between two such bright and clever people; it meant great -attention and admiration and interest. Rita was caught by it as if he -had put forth his hand to stop her as she passed him. Stupid! how could -she have thought him stupid? That look was not stupid, not even heavy or -pre-occupied, like so many other young Englishmen, who looked distrait -when anything was talked of beyond their own little capacities. Harry -had not at all this aspect. If his mind was not quite up to the mark of -their conversation his attention was. He wanted to listen and to -understand. She looked at him, thus, once, twice, feeling each time more -favourably disposed—and the third time she fairly stopped and turned -round and addressed him.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Oliver,” she said, “we are very uncivil, papa and I. We are so used -to talking to each other that, when there is anyone here, if he does not -stop us and force us to listen to him, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> just go on. I have felt how -silly it was. I wish you would put a stop to us, and make us listen to -you.”</p> - -<p>“But I should not like that,” said Harry; “you talk a great deal better -than I do. Talking was never any gift of mine; but I like to listen. I -am picking up a great deal, though you may not think it. Everything is -so new to me here.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, I will ask you a very silly question,” said Rita; “I will -ask you what everybody will ask you, and of course you cannot tell yet -how to answer; but you will answer all the same. How do you like -Leghorn, Mr. Oliver? Do you think you will like us when you know us -better? I hope you think that is a nice commonplace beginning,” said -Rita, laughing; and a faint little colour came over her of half -amusement and half self-reproach.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, I don’t think it silly at all; I am commonplace myself,” said -Harry, with a little sigh. “I wish I could be more remarkable, but I -can’t. Yes, I like Leghorn very much, and I think I shall like all the -people I know, more and more as I know them better. But I don’t know -many people. Except Mr. Bonamy and yourself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> who have been so kind to -me, I have got but one friend.”</p> - -<p>“One friend, hear him! as if that was a thing that could be picked up at -every corner,” the Vice-Consul said.</p> - -<p>“I never saw anything like him,” said Harry, “he is like a child—and -very simple in his ways of thinking. He is twenty times better than I -am, and yet I feel sometimes as if I must laugh. You don’t know what -strange people we English are, Miss Bonamy. We can see how good a thing -is, and yet we can’t help laughing if it is a little out of the way.”</p> - -<p>“Then,” said Rita, “tell me why. I have no way of knowing but what -people tell me. There are things said about Englishmen just as there are -things said about women, in general. Now the women I know are quite -unlike each other. I cannot imagine any one thing that they would all -think or do. Are Englishmen all the same?”</p> - -<p>“Now, Oliver, be on your guard,” said her father, “that’s one of her -theories. She wants to push you into a corner and compel you to commit -yourself. Women have this and that way of thinking, we all say, don’t -we? and it’s quite true. ‘Really!’ says this little person, ‘I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> suppose, -then, women are all exactly like each other?’ Have a care, my young -friend; she looks innocent, but I don’t advise you to let yourself fall -into her hands.”</p> - -<p>“When I said Englishmen”—said Harry, faltering; then he gathered a -little boldness—“We are not all like each other: but this is rather -true of all of us—at least, so I think: we jeer at things we don’t -understand.”</p> - -<p>“Bravo,” said the Vice-Consul, clapping his hands, “I see you understand -our dear countrymen.”</p> - -<p>“We don’t mean much harm,” said Harry, led on beyond himself. “I suppose -that in other countries just the same happens in different ways. When -people act in a way we should not think of acting, we think it is so -strange that we—laugh at them. It is wrong, I have no doubt, and silly, -but still we do it. The first thing is, we laugh at them—Italians don’t -seem to do so. They are most polite.”</p> - -<p>“And the French don’t do it.”</p> - -<p>“Papa, they do a great deal worse,” said Rita; “for the language, for -instance, they are far more hard than you. When anyone speaks English -badly, you laugh, but you don’t mind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> The Frenchman doesn’t laugh, he -is horribly polite—but he thinks the worse of you for ever after. I see -what you mean. There is a kind of a way you have of looking at things in -the same light, which does not mean that you are alike, or all thinking -in the same way. Perhaps,” said Rita, meditatively, “that may be true of -Englishmen—and women too. Yes, I see how that might be true. I am very -much obliged to you, Mr. Oliver, for putting it in so clear a light.”</p> - -<p>Harry could only stare at her with a mixture of amazement and -gratification. He to be applauded for putting something in a clear -light! and by Rita, who knew so much more than he did. He could not but -laugh within himself at the unlikelihood of it; yet he was gratified by -the thought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /><br /> -<small>HARRY’S PROGRESS.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>FTER this, Harry “settled down.” It was a somewhat disappointing, -disenchanting process, but still it was better than it appeared at the -first glance. Paolo, finding that his friend could not be happy without -a sitting-room, which seemed to himself the most unnecessary of -luxuries, exerted himself to procure an appartamento for him which -should include this, and managed, after a little delay, to do so, at a -price so modest that Harry was astonished, and the padrone di casa much -disgusted and indignant when he found that he had actually suffered his -rooms to go, at a rent extravagant only for Italians, to an Englishman. -The landlord was so disappointed and annoyed by this that the occa<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>sion -made him voluble; for “Ecco!” he said, “a countryman, that is—a -countryman. He knows as much as we do. He is aware of everything. He can -do what he pleases. That he should have the rooms cheap, that -understands itself: that is all just. But a stranger! And, on the other -hand, they want so much more, these strangers. They will demand -breakfast, and even refreshments in the evening! They are so lazy they -will not give themselves the pain to descend to the caffè for their -coffee, which is the natural way, but will demand to have it here, which -is endless trouble. I never could have believed that Ser Paolo, who is a -person of education, would so have treated an old neighbour.” He said so -much on the subject that Harry, with something of that impatience and -careless magnificence which are (supposedly) the characteristics of the -English, declared that, rather than be so persecuted, he would pay -twenty lire a month more than had been asked of him, an offer which made -the padrone think him a great fool, but a true Englishman, and which -drove Paolo nearly out of himself with indignation. It may be understood -by this fact that Harry soon picked up as much Italian as made him -understand at least<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the tone of address, whether it was friendly or -angry: and in smaller matters he was soon able to make himself -understood.</p> - -<p>The first night of his residence in his new quarters, when he heard -Paolo close the door behind him, and felt himself left all alone at the -top of a tall Italian house, without a soul within call, gazing round -him at the four bare white walls, his lamp looking at him with three -unwinking eyes, and not a trace of anything that looked like home—vain -word!—the young fellow was altogether overcome, and staring round with -a wild look of despair, was as near breaking into idle tears as ever man -was. But what was the use? He had made his bed (or his people had made -it for him, as he thought), and there he must lie. He had half a dozen -books on the table: one upon the laws that affect shipping and the -maritime code, another on International Law generally, the rest Italian -grammars and dictionaries, a volume of easy little stories in the same -language, and that well-known volume of Silvio Pellico, out of which so -many people have learned their first Italian lessons. They were none of -them very interesting to Harry. “Le Mie Prigioni,” when you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> have made -it out with the aid of a dictionary, is not more tempting than any other -book would be under these circumstances. They were as blank as the white -walls, the silent room, the dead solitude of the place, to Harry. A -yellow novel, if he could have got that, would have been precious to -him. But he had not even that to fall back upon. He crept dismally to -bed, unable to contemplate his fate, and turned his face to the wall, -much as his mother was doing at home. But in the morning things were -better; and though he never could reconcile himself to the gloom and -solitude of his appartamento at night, during the day things went -tolerably well with him when he began to know what was being said around -him, and to wake up to the new insight which a new language confers. -Gradually he began to take a little interest in the porter’s family, in -the shrill padrona, shrieking her orders and her commentaries from the -balcony of the fourth piano across the deep well of the courtyard, who -was a terrible nuisance, yet by and by began to feel homelike, so that -he missed her sharp peacock-cry when the arrival of a baby compelled a -brief withdrawal from her usual active survey of the affairs of her -tenants. And so the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> time went on, and months passed, and Harry became -accustomed to his life.</p> - -<p>There were times, however, in which those slow beginnings of content -which soothed Harry’s mind, rose into something a great deal higher and -brighter: and these were the hours which he spent in the private rooms -at the Consulate, where, by degrees, he became very familiar, a sort of -son of the house. Harry never knew how this happened, nor did the -Bonamys themselves, who, bit by bit, opened their doors more completely -to him. They had never done so before to any clerk. The office generally -was held at arm’s length by the head of it. He was thought proud by the -<i>employés</i> generally. What was he, many even asked, that he should give -himself so many airs? But he never gave himself any airs to Harry. Even -when they began to forget that romance about the young squire who had -quarrelled with his family, which was entirely their own invention, they -did not turn away from or cast off the stranger who, falling into their -midst with no recommendations at all, had made himself so strong a -footing amongst them, partly from accident, partly from imagination. -Very soon, indeed, Harry came to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> be considered as part of the family; a -ready hand to be appealed to for everything; a ready hearer, though he -did not always understand: an invariably sympathetic and trustworthy -friend of the house. To Mr. Bonamy it was a great advantage to have some -one in the office whom he could treat upon this footing; to whom he -could speak confidentially of all that occurred, and with whom, if need -were, even in the bosom of society, he could confer on any accident of -official business, sending Harry off to do this or that, even from the -card-table where he was playing round games with the younger guests, or -out of the heart of a valse, when need was. Harry liked the dance, and -was merry and useful at the card-playing, but he never complained or -grumbled if he were sent away. He had to come back late when the company -was gone, to make his report, and that privilege atoned to him for the -self-sacrifice. On such occasions, when the great <i>salone</i> was still all -alight, and Rita reposing upon the sofa, or buried in a great chair, -after her exertions, while the Vice-Consul had already put on the light -dressing-gown in which he smoked his evening cigar, the young man, -returning, had the pleasantest welcome. Mr. Bonamy put<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> towards him his -box of cigarettes; the windows were all open; the warm Italian night -glowing out of doors; the stars shining, and every breath of the soft -air a delight. In that Italian room the light smoke was not thought out -of place. Rita had been used to it all her life. She might have taken -one of these little cigarettes herself and nobody thought any harm; but, -fortunately for Harry’s feelings, to whom it would have been a very -terrible profanation of a girl’s lips, she did not. But she lay back in -her chair, her pale face and dark locks relieved upon the soft, rich old -damask, and watched the two men with a smile. The Consul, who loved -everything that was beautiful, had his smoking-coat also made of -damask—a piece of brocade, in colours which Harry thought faded—and -he, too, threw himself negligently back in his chair and listened to his -young aide-de-camp’s report, with his fine head on one side, like a -benevolent prince listening to the information collected for him by a -young prime minister, all visionary, and eager in his plans for the -benefit of their people. Perhaps it was only a refractory ship-captain -whom Harry had talked into submission, or an impatient Englishman whose -suspicions of extortion had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> got him into trouble; and sometimes the -three would laugh over the characteristic follies of their countrymen, -and incapacity to understand the grandiloquence of the Italian -authorities. When Harry got to be sufficiently strong in the language, -he would himself make very merry over the <i>sentimento magnifico</i> of the -professional pillagers whose charges here and there drove a stranger -wild, but who always professed the noblest superiority to all interested -motives. Rita, who was more than half an Italian, was sometimes piqued -by the laughter in which her father joined, and would stand up for the -kindly race to whom she owed half her blood and all her training. She -would shine out from the soft background when she thus roused herself in -defence of her people, her great dark eyes glowing, her white little -figure all alive with energy. “You are all made up of suspicions, you -English,” she said. “You think everyone wants to cheat you, to get your -money from you. Yes, and it is you who want to get what they have from -them. I wonder who it is who picks up the pictures, and the -<i>bric-à-brac</i>, and shakes his head” (which she did with a good imitation -of her father’s benevolent regret), “and complains that all the little -dealers are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> beginning to know the value of the things they have to -sell, eh, papa? Old Leonardi showed his <i>sentimento magnifico</i> when he -let you have that little Ghirlandajo for next to nothing.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe it is a Ghirlandajo—of his school, that is all,” said -the Consul, blandly, “and he lets me have it cheap—not for nothing: he -lets me have it cheap because he thinks the English travellers will see -it here and will go to him to be fleeced, that is the best reason he -has, I fear.”</p> - -<p>“And if it is, you take advantage of it,” cried Rita. “Which is worst? -There was that piece of lace the other day. I said (it was quite true) -what shall I do with it, Signor Giovanni? it is not enough for a dress; -and he said, in the prettiest way, the Signorina shall put it upon her -handkerchief to remind her of old Leonardi. I took it; what could I do? -it would have made him angry if I had refused it after that. Was not -that the <i>sentimento magnifico</i>, Mr. Oliver—you who don’t believe in my -Italians? If I had offered him money for it he would never have spoken -to me again.”</p> - -<p>“I thought he was an old Jew,” said Harry;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> “but I see he is a fine old -fellow, and I shall go and buy something from him to-morrow. He will -cheat me; but I shan’t mind after what you have said.”</p> - -<p>“He will cheat you,” said the Vice-Consul, with equanimity; “though he -has a fine sense of the proper time to be honest, and the proper time to -be liberal all the same; but let us hear how you got your Englishman out -of his clutches, for that is the business immediately in hand.”</p> - -<p>And then Harry returned to his story, and told how the poor tourist had -raved and blasphemed, how he had bought a picture which was vouched for -as genuine, and it was found to be a flagrant copy; and how old Leonardi -had perjured himself over and over again, and sworn by all the saints -that there could be no doubt of its authenticity, holding up his fine -old Italian head in the very presence of the painter, who had made the -copy, and denying all knowledge of it. The tourist, whose settled -conviction it was that “the natives” everywhere were in league against -him, was, however, the chief point in Harry’s report. He had rather -thought so himself when he landed in Leghorn, and the feeling which had -made him refuse Paolo’s first offer of service, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> carry his own -portmanteau, and hunt out the hotel for himself, still lingered in his -bosom. He understood the character so well that he set it forth with -great power before his audience; and Harry was so much gratified by his -success, and by the gradual blowing away of the cloud which was on -Rita’s countenance, and the delightful laughter with which she chimed in -after a while, that he rose into higher heights. He himself was just -beginning to awake to the humours of the Englishman abroad, and it was -very pleasant to find himself superior to them, as one who understood -the language and knew the people, and could explain a good many mistakes -and misapprehensions away.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Oliver, you are very English,” Rita said gravely, after the story -and the laughter were over. She was apt to change in a moment, and with -the smile just disappearing from her lips, to produce the most serious -remark.</p> - -<p>“Am I?” said Harry, a little crestfallen; for he rather thought he had -made it apparent that he was very superior to the English—that is the -common English who travel, and who are often, as we all hasten to tell -our foreign friends, so little credit to the race. Then he added with -more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> spirit, “I suppose I am very English. What else could I be? I have -only been a year away.”</p> - -<p>“Do you call this ‘away?’<span class="lftspc">”</span> she said, with a somewhat startled tone. -“Yes, of course it is ‘away.’ Over there is what you have always been -used to—that is home—of course;” but the idea seemed to be new to -Rita, and not to give her pleasure. The Vice-Consul had gone off to his -business-room to get something that was wanted, and the two young people -were alone.</p> - -<p>“It may be home,” said Harry, with a roused and almost irritated tone; -“but I shall never see it again. Home has so many meanings. I shall say -presently I am going home, and I shall mean my appartamento—as Paolo -calls it—not very much of a home,” he said, with a sharp laugh.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it? I say home, too, when I speak of England; but I shall never -see it. Do you know I am never to be allowed to go to England, Mr. -Oliver? That makes me like to hear everything about it. Then you and I -are the same in that; but you will change your mind.”</p> - -<p>“You are much more likely to change your mind,” said Harry. “I—have -good reason——”</p> - -<p>“And do you think I have not good reason too? When my mother went there, -she died.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“She might have died anywhere,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>“It is harsh of you to say so. Yes, to be sure she might have died -anywhere: but they say it is so cold in England,” said Rita, with a -little shiver; the night air seemed all at once to have grown chilly. -She looked at the big window close to her and shivered again. Harry got -up and closed it without a word.</p> - -<p>“It is cold, when you expect it to be cold,” said Harry; “that is pretty -often, to be sure: but it does not take you in an underhand way like -this. In England it is all above-board; it blows right in your face, it -does not steal in like <i>that</i> behind your back and chill you. Things are -honest at home. I think I could take you all over England, and you would -get no harm.”</p> - -<p>“Could you?” said Rita eagerly; “do you know a way? but how then, Mr. -Oliver? tell me, do you know a way?”</p> - -<p>“It would be just to take care of you,” said Harry, with a blush. “I -know <i>that</i> way. I should understand that you wanted taking care of, and -I would take care of you. For my part, I should not be a bit afraid.”</p> - -<p>Rita did not notice the blush on his face. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> desire of her heart was -to go to England, and this made her think. She had the credulity of her -birthplace about wonderful elixirs and miraculous ways of doing a -dangerous thing. She looked at him dreamily, yet eagerly, with her great -eyes. “But <i>how</i> should you do it?” she repeated, “Mr. Oliver; if there -is some particular way, will you tell me? For if you only knew—if you -could only know how I wish to go to England——!”</p> - -<p>“There is no particular way,” said Harry; “if I were ever to go back -home, which I never shall—and if you were to go with me, which most -likely you never would—then you should go, and no harm would happen to -you; that is all I know.”</p> - -<p>He spoke abruptly, and he was flushed and hasty. Rita did not think at -the moment what it meant; she sat very quiet in her great chair, while -her father came in and resumed the conversation—thinking over what he -had said. Immediately there had risen before her a vision of the white -cliffs she had heard of so often, and of green fields and red roofs, and -of all the special features of English scenery which she had read of. -What could it be that made him so sure? “If I were ever to go, which I -never shall—and if you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> were to come with me, which most likely you -never would—— Well, no,” Rita said to herself, with a half smile, “not -much likelihood of that; how could I go with him? he means if we were to -take him with us—he means——” and then she came to a pause, and a -sudden reflection of the colour on Harry’s face wavered over hers for a -minute; only a minute. She was not altogether inexperienced in life; she -had already been the subject of several proposals addressed to her -father, which he had declined after reference to Rita, so that she was -aware that she was looked upon with favourable eyes by various persons, -and that the love which is so much talked of in books might light upon -her at any moment. Rita had, for her part, no particular objection; she -had even left the door of her heart open, so that when he was thereabout -that intrusive sentiment might come in if he pleased. But up to this -moment he had not come in; the door had stood open, but nothing had -entered except poetry and gentle thoughts. But Rita, after this -conversation, experienced a very curious sensation. She felt not as if -anyone had got in by the door, but as if some one passing had half -stumbled against it, finding it closed, and, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> answer being given, had -gone his way. In the first haze of this idea she got up from her chair -and said good night, and went off to her room, complaining that she was -sleepy. But she was not sleepy; she sat down and began to think as soon -as she had got within the protection of her chamber. It was not any -personal feeling that moved her, far less any strong emotion; but all at -once she was conscious of a keen and lively curiosity springing up in -her mind, eager and lively as her nature. Did he mean——? What did he -mean? “If I were to go to England—which I never shall—and if you were -to come with me——” Why should she go with him? What reason could there -be for such a thing, what excuse? He must be mad to make such a -suggestion; but yet it kept coming back to her. “If I were to go, and if -you were to come with me.” Certainly the door of that hidden chamber in -her heart had swung to and closed, and somebody passing, a stranger, had -run up against it, and shaken it, as if to try whether it would be easy -to open. It was a very strange suggestion. Rita had been sought by -persons of condition, by people who had something to offer, and who had -made their proposals, as everybody who respects himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> does in Italy, -to the young lady’s father. But here was somebody who was nobody, and -who took hold of the handle of that door of her heart, which she had -believed to be open, but which had evidently closed of itself, and gave -it a sharp shake, without thinking of her father or any consequences -whatever. She thought of it for a long time, turning it over and over -with the greatest curiosity. It was a new thing in her experience. He -wanted a great many of the qualities which she considered indispensable -in a man. First and chiefest of all he was not clever. He knew nothing -about books, he scarcely knew a picture when he saw one. Instead of -hunting about in the <i>bric-à-brac</i> shops as her father did, and as even -little Paolo Thompson (whom Mr. Oliver called Paul-ó) was in the habit -of doing, picking up wonderful things now and then, this stranger gazed -with blank eyes at the treasures, and could not understand them. He was -altogether a different kind of man from any she had ever seen, a -homelier, duller sort of man; and yet he was not dull. The whole house -was quiet and asleep when Rita suddenly sprang up from this long -reverie, catching sight of her own big eyes in her looking-glass, and -wonder<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>ing at the wonder in them. She had got a new idea into her active -little head. It was something novel and curious, and very amusing, but -it did not seem to her at all necessary that it should ever come to -anything. She wondered what he would say next, or how he would look, or -what he would do. She was pleased on the whole to think that now perhaps -she would have an opportunity of watching what a man looked like in such -circumstances as these, which is a thing always interesting and, some -people think, very amusing to see.</p> - -<p>As for Harry, he went home that evening with a sensation not less -extraordinary, but much more definite than that of Rita. He had not -thought of the meaning of what he was saying till he had said it; he had -not been aware of meaning anything, and yet he knew now that he did mean -it. What had he been doing? Without a name, without a home, without -anything in the world, he had been so foolish as to fall in love with a -girl who, in the best of circumstances, would have been above him. The -Joscelyns thought a great deal of themselves; but when Harry thought of -the parlour at the White House, and then of Rita’s drawing-room, he felt -that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> was immeasurably above him, and that to say such a thing to -her was not only wrong, but mean and ungenerous. If you were to come -with me—Good life, why had he suggested that to her? <i>She</i> come with -him? It seemed ridiculous, more out of the question to Harry than it had -done to Rita. He was angry beyond measure with himself for letting -himself be run away with, so to speak, by the foolish impulse of the -moment. For he had never meant to say it, or indeed to suggest any idea -of the kind. He was full of sense, though passion had him in its power -when it once got hold of him. In the meantime, however, there was no -question of passion. It was the pleasure of his life to be with Rita, to -see her, to do little services for her, to hear her talk; but when the -idea was suddenly set before him that he might marry Rita and carry her -away with him, Harry was more frightened than she was. He to think of -such a thing! He walked home at such a pace, with such a swift, -impatient step, that the few passengers in the streets turned about to -look after him, wondering what business he might have in hand—if he -were going for a doctor, or any such urgent occasion; but Harry was -walking fast only to keep up with his thoughts, which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> suddenly been -let loose like colts in a pasture, and were all careering about wildly, -so that it was impossible to catch or lay hold upon them. How could he -have been so mad as to have let them loose! and he wondered had she -understood him? But how could she understand him, a child like that? she -was too innocent to understand. He hurried along to his apartment in -full chase after that wild herd of thoughts and imaginations. If he had -them but once safely shut up again under lock and key certainly it would -be a strong temptation indeed that would tempt him to let them loose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /><br /> -<small>A REVELATION.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>ARRY found himself thus brought up, and forced to give, to himself, an -account of himself, such as he had never in his consciousness been -compelled to make before. He was in an altogether new position, and it -was indispensable that he should know where it was leading to, and what -was meant by it. There had been no occasion to inquire into this before. -He had plenty to do learning Italian, learning about the shipping, -getting into the duties of his new life. The Consul’s house and the -Consul’s daughter had been his little bit of happiness, his reward after -his work, his diversion from those dismal sensations of utter solitude -which had almost overwhelmed him at first; and he had not thought of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> -any complication of interests or feelings. Nothing need have awakened -him from this comfortable state if it had not been that unlucky -conversation about going to England. Why should he have talked about -going to England? He never meant to go back, or, if ever, not at least -until he had grown rich and altogether independent of <i>them</i> and their -kindness. But in the meantime there did not seem any immediate -likelihood of growing rich, and why he should have stepped outside all -the boundaries of his life and suggested the sudden possibility of going -home and taking Miss Bonamy with him, baffled Harry’s comprehension. -Sometimes we say and even do things which on looking back upon them we -feel were not our doing at all, but that of some one else, rather our -enemy than otherwise, some one making a distinct effort to get us into -trouble. This was Harry’s sensation now; he was half angry and half -frightened. It was some malign, mischievous traitor wanting to betray -him, not himself, who had said that. He went home breathless, and when -he had climbed all those dark stairs to his rooms, and lighted his lamp, -he sat down, and, as it were, called a council of himself, to inquire -who had done it. But it is a great deal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> easier to feel that some one -has betrayed us in this way than it is to determine who has done it; for -those internal traitors have no names, and cannot be brought to the bar. -His investigation so far was fruitless; but it was fertile enough in -other ways, in ways in which he did not feel any anxiety to investigate. -Harry had never been brought into familiar intercourse with any girl -before. He had seen them at a distance, in circumstances which made no -approach possible, even if he had desired it; and he did not know that -he had ever desired it. Once or twice he had been struck by a pretty -face, and had felt a passing wish, mingled with reluctance, to make -further acquaintance with it; that is he would have wished it if he had -been able to get over his shyness, and the difficulty of knowing what to -say, and the trouble of overcoming all the preliminary obstacles. But -here none of these difficulties had existed; he had come quite naturally -into Rita’s acquaintance at once, as if she had been a comrade of his -own. There had been no shyness, no hesitation, but the easy talk of a -table at which strangers were constantly appearing and disappearing, and -a house in which this young creature, though so young, was the mistress, -and used to all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> exertions necessary to set people at their ease. He -had admired her he said to himself, from the first—who could help -admiring her? but it had been so clearly her part to entertain and amuse -the people about her, and she had been so pleasantly indifferent, so -innocently at her ease, so oblivious of his presence often, so kind when -her attention was called to him, that all those little bulwarks of -freedom, which boys and girls when they are made conscious of each -other, set up instinctively, had been useless in this case. She was -neither afraid of him nor solicitous about him. Sometimes she took no -more notice than if he had been a cabbage, and at other times was as -seriously confidential as if he had been eighty. Harry had liked all the -ways of it. He had been piqued a little sometimes, but afterwards had -found it quite natural, and liked her friendliness and indifference, and -the occasional moment of household intimacy, when she would look at him -to indicate some little service she wanted, as she might have looked at -her brother, without words, taking his interest and compliance for -granted. And gradually, without any thought, this had come to be the -pleasure and support of Harry’s life. When he did not see her, when he -was not at the house<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> for a whole day, it was a dull day indeed; but -still faintly illuminated by to-morrow, when he was sure to see her. -When she went away upon a visit, which happened once, the Consul’s -despondency kept him in countenance. Mr. Bonamy adopted Harry in her -place. “Come in and help me to eat something,” he said, “I can’t bear -her empty seat. When my Rita is away I feel inclined to hang myself.” -Harry had almost betrayed himself (to himself) by the warmth of the -sympathy which he bestowed upon the disconsolate father; but as Mr. -Bonamy ended by a doleful laugh at himself as an old fool, Harry laughed -too, and the catastrophe was averted, and so things had gone on for a -whole long year.</p> - -<p>What a year that had been!—far the most wonderful of Harry’s life. So -many new things had happened to him; he had been torn out of all his old -habits, and made into another man with a new set of habits—as new as -the light-coloured clothes in which alone it was possible to live on -those southern coasts. And he had become so much the more of a man that -he was now, so to speak, two men, one developed out of the other. He -looked back upon the Henry Joscelyn of Liverpool with a mixture of -amusement and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> pity. He had been a poor sort of limited creature, not -knowing much; going half asleep between his office and his lodgings, now -and then going to a poor theatre, walking about with small clerks in -other offices, who knew nothing more than their own little gossip and -the town news, and the fluctuations of trade. Perhaps it was a sign that -Harry himself had not yet reached any great elevation, that he thought -his present life so greatly superior. The reader knows he had not -thought so always. He had compared his big, bare room, with its four -white walls, most unfavourably with the carpeted and curtained parlour -of his Liverpool experiences. But since that time his mind had undergone -many transformations. His appartamento had become to him what Paolo’s -was, a decent and tranquil shelter for the night. He had no longer -thought of the respectabilities, of sitting there for a whole evening, -of drinking tea, and having his friends to see him there. These were old -customs at which he smiled. He had acquired a great many others which -were now to him not only a second nature, but far more enjoyable, more -lifelike, he thought, than the old. At all events, they were the habits -of the present, not of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> past. And amidst these changes, the advance -in which might be questionable, were various other changes in Harry’s -life of which the advantage was unquestionable. To live half his time in -the Consul’s house, between a man of culture and education, and a young, -fresh, intelligent girl, who had grown up knowing a world of things -until then sealed books to Harry; and to have to do, not with mere -bookkeeping, and sales, and goods of various descriptions, but with men, -in a hundred little perplexities, out of which his skill, his patience, -his superior knowledge, had to deliver them—were educating influences -of the most active kind. He was a different man, and he felt himself to -be so. How much he was the same man of course it was more difficult for -Harry to see.</p> - -<p>And here, in his new life, he had come to the first great difficulty; -things had gone on smoothly, not a hitch anywhere. He had discharged all -his duties to the satisfaction of his chief. He had acquired the very -phraseology of a much higher class than that which he naturally belonged -to, and talked of his chief as if he had been a fine gentleman in a -public office. Many people, indeed, believed that Harry had been sent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> -out by the “F.O.” with special instructions to keep Mr. Bonamy in order; -and many more that he had come to Mr. Bonamy with the strongest -recommendations from that dignified and mysterious power. Nobody guessed -that he had been picked up off the streets, so to speak, by the mere -generous caprice and mistaken romantic fancy of the rich official, who -might, for all he knew, have been jeopardising the credit of the office -by admitting a young adventurer to its sacred shelter. Mr. Bonamy had -long ago forgotten that Harry had come to his present promotion in any -illegitimate or irregular way, or that the appointment had occurred -otherwise than in the ordinary course; and Oliver was his right hand, -his constant refuge, his aide-de-camp in all things. He had even -forgotten that he did not know all about the origin of the stranger who -was now so freely admitted to his house. He was rash in that as in other -matters, and though he would have given his life for his daughter it -never occurred to him to take those precautions about her which the most -selfish parent usually thinks it necessary to take. Everything had gone -smoothly for Harry. At the Consul’s house he had met “the best people” -that were to be found in Leghorn,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> the rich English merchants, and also -many Italians, old traditionary friends of Rita’s mother, who was of -Italian blood. By this time Harry had got a footing among them, and was -asked to other houses, and known everywhere. Everything was going -smoothly. He had no reason to be discontented or anxious about his -future life. Everybody knew him, and nobody knew other than good of him. -Whatever happened he would never again be the desolate stranger, with a -new name, and no reputation, who had landed friendless on these shores.</p> - -<p>And yet, with all these advantages, and this progress, suddenly, in a -moment, he was brought to a standstill by this discovery. What wonder if -Harry was provoked beyond bearing with himself and that traitor in him, -who would not be brought to book? There was something almost ludicrous -in his dismay. Why couldn’t you hold your tongue? he said, indignantly, -to that something within him. Who wanted to know what you were thinking? -What is the good of it now you have let it out? It was a ridiculous -discussion, there being no one to reply, but yet it gave expression to -the self-provoked and impatient character of Harry’s dilemma. For how -was he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> to banish it back again and go on as if that idiotic suggestion -had never been made?</p> - -<p>Love is not so simple a thing as people think, at least in these -artificial days. In the old simple story-books, and, indeed, often still -in life, when such a revelation as this comes to a man, he jumps at once -to the natural conclusion, throws himself at once into the situation, -wooes, proposes, and, if he is successful, ends by being at -least—engaged. Sometimes he does this with a noble indifference to -circumstances and possibilities, or, at least, an indifference which, -when he has spirit enough to take the consequences upon himself, and -boldly hew possibility out of impossibility, is noble. Sometimes he -leaps the intervening steps and thinks of nothing but of marrying as the -natural and inevitable conclusion. The woman invariably does this; love -to her means marriage, or it means nothing at all. It is an offence to -her delicacy to play with it, to keep any decision at arm’s length, as -men often think themselves justified in doing; so that it remains more -simple (unless she is a coquette) in her case than in his. But with a -man, now-a-days, at least, to enjoy all the gratifications and delicate -bloom of nascent love without coming to any crisis, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> must make an -entire change of all these relations and modes of living necessary, is -often very desirable. But this reluctance to come to a decision, though -sometimes selfish, is not so always; and in Harry’s case it was not -selfish. He had not walked open-eyed into this snare which life is -continually setting for young feet; he had tumbled into it unawares; and -in his situation, being unlucky enough to have tumbled into it, his only -policy, his only honourable course, was either to get out of it with as -much expedition as possible, or to hold his tongue about it, and never -to betray his plight to the other person involved. But Harry had been -betrayed, to himself, at least, if not to <i>her</i>, and the question now -was, what was he to do? He sat and thought over this question, as on the -other side of it Rita was doing—though this he did not know, nor guess; -but he could not for his part make anything of it. He could not keep -away from the Consul’s house, or shut himself out from her society, -without further betrayal. His situation was such that if he remitted his -visits, if he failed to appear with all the ease and familiarity to -which he had been admitted, and which had been growing for a year past, -he could not fail to be questioned on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> subject, and his secret drawn -from him. Even if he kept a little aloof from Rita, avoided her as much -as civility permitted, and avoided occasions of being with her, that -also would be remarked. What was he to do? For now that he had once -betrayed himself who could guarantee that, continuing to see her every -day, as he had been doing, he might, on some other occasion, betray -himself still more distinctly. His embarrassment and trouble grew the -more he thought of it. It could not be, surely, that he would be -compelled to go out upon the desert world again and begin anew? Surely, -surely, that would not be necessary! And yet, what was he to do? The -question on Rita’s side by no means interfered with her rest, save for -that hour or so when she chose to think of it, instead of brushing her -hair; but it took away Harry’s, upon whom all the responsibility rested. -Her feeling on the matter came only the length of a certain amused -interest and curiosity as to how he would conduct himself in the future, -and what he meant by these odd speeches; but his affected all his life. -Whether he should stay where he was, or go away; whether he should have -to throw aside again all his hopes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> advancement, all his comfort and -renewed confidence in his fate, all hung in the balance. He turned -uneasily on his bed all the night through, dozing and dreaming of it, -and waking to ask the same question again. But the night brings counsel, -and when he woke somewhat late the next morning from the sleep which -overtook him at last in the midst of his deliberations, he woke with a -new idea in his mind, as we so often do, after a long consideration. The -first words he said to himself as he woke were, “I will ask Paolo.” For -a moment he could not tell what the momentous subject was that he was to -ask Paolo about.</p> - -<p>Paolo had continued to be Harry’s faithful friend; but their intercourse -had been disturbed by the society at the Consulate, for, except on some -special occasion, he was not important enough to be introduced to all -the fine company that assembled there; only now and then when all the -<i>employés</i> were asked, and a little semipublic fête for them banished -the fine people, did Paolo enter these enchanted walls, and talk with -the young mistress of the house. He had scarcely ever talked to Harry of -the Signorina, but when he did mention her there had been a slightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> -cynical tone in his remarks. To tell the truth, Paolo had never got over -that first appearance of the Vice-Consul’s daughter in the street at -night. He had recognized her, clinging to her old attendant, hurrying -away, while Harry, all unconscious of what was to come of it, had -stopped the Italians who were pursuing her, and summarily knocked down -the Englishman. Paolo was not ill-natured, nor given to ill-thinking, -but he was an Italian, and he could not imagine any perfectly virtuous -motive which could have taken a young lady out of her house at that -hour. That love or intrigue had something to do with it he was -convinced, and all the proof in the world could not have persuaded him -otherwise. But he did not wish to throw any indiscreet light upon her -proceedings, or to betray her to the world. With some sense of this, -though without ever explaining to himself how it was that he had such a -feeling, Harry had refrained from telling him the climax of the story. -He had left the Consul’s sudden friendship unexplained, Paolo requiring -no explanation of it, and feeling it the most simple and natural thing -in the world. But during the whole interval there had been in Paolo’s -tone a note of un<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>expressed warning against the Vice-Consul’s daughter; -he had not said anything, but he had left something to be inferred. This -Harry had sometimes resented, sometimes laughed at, but he had never -taken the warning or been moved by the tone. He thought it was a -prejudice such as one person sometimes feels quite unaccountably against -another; or that perhaps it was some pique; perhaps that Paolo himself -had admired too much the young princess who was so entirely out of his -reach: but whatever was the cause, he was conscious enough that Paolo -was not favourable to the lady of his thoughts. And he resolved -accordingly to ask the advice of his friend on the grand question only. -He would not give him any special information, or even indicate, however -vaguely, who the lady was. That he should speak to Paolo at all on the -subject showed that a change had come over Harry’s thoughts. It would be -too much to say that he did not entertain still a somewhat contemptuous -estimate of the little “foreigner” who had sworn eternal friendship at -first sight, and had wept, and even kissed his friend, in his rapture at -his good fortune. When Harry recalled that embrace he grew red still, -with the undying indignation which moves a man when he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> been made -ridiculous. And he still treated Paolo <i>de haut en bas</i>, with a careless -superiority. But by this time he had learned to know that Paolo was on -some things a much better authority than himself, and that, though he -might be trivial and absurd on questions which Englishmen consider -themselves judges of, yet there were other matters, chiefly touching his -own countrymen, which he knew better than any Englishman. To have -attained to this conviction was in a way a moral advance for Harry, who -formerly had looked down upon “foreigners,” not thinking them worth the -trouble of studying, or esteeming the knowledge which was only concerned -with them and their ways. He had no opportunity of speaking to Paolo -till dinner. They were both of them faithful, more or less, to the -<i>table-d’hôte</i> at the Leone, where they had first become friends: but -Harry’s attendance there now was irregular, and when he entered the -dining-room Paolo’s face became radiant with pleasure. He seized his -friend’s arm and gave it a squeeze of satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“But without doubt you go somewhere in the evening?” he said, with a -mixture of wistfulness and triumphant pride. He was proud of Harry’s -succès in society; but yet to have so little of him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> pained the faithful -soul. He had bettered his English, but perhaps he had not much improved -his happiness by his devotion to this stranger, to whom he had been so -useful. Harry gave him very little of his company, and no demonstration -of affection in return for his love.</p> - -<p>“No; I want you to come to my rooms, Paolo. I want to consult you about -something—we’ll have some coffee brought up there, and we’ll have a -talk.”</p> - -<p>“Benissimo!” said Paolo, glowing with pleasure. “However,” he added with -simplicity, “there is little that I can instruct you in now. You know -all—you are better as me. But if there is any case that is hard to -understand——”</p> - -<p>“You make me ashamed of myself,” said Harry; “do you really think I -never want to see you but when I have something to ask? I don’t think I -am quite so bad as that. Of course I have picked your brains constantly; -but still I am not so bad as that.”</p> - -<p>At this Paolo was up in arms, as if some terrible accusation had been -brought against him.</p> - -<p>“Pardon, pardon, Amico,” he said. “Do you think I am finding fault? do -you think I make myself a censure over you (he meant censor, but this -was unimportant)? It is all otherwise. To<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> see you go into society makes -me pleasure—the grandest pleasure. If not me, it is my friend—it is as -good—better, as to go myself. You pick my brains—<i>bene</i>! my brains is -glad to be pick.”</p> - -<p>“I think you are the best fellow in the world,” Harry said, “and I am a -beast always to take advantage of you—to come to you whenever I want -you.”</p> - -<p>“What then is a friend?” said Paolo, with that glistening of the eyes -which Harry was always afraid of. And then the excellent fellow -suppressed himself, knowing Harry’s objections to a scene. “I am a -duffare,” he said, with a laugh, “if there is something I can do that -makes me glad.”</p> - -<p>“I want your advice, Paolo,” said Harry; “it is nothing about business; -it is not information I want from you. I am in a difficulty—I am in -trouble—and I want your advice.”</p> - -<p>“In troouble!” Paolo’s face grew long, long as his arm; his lively -imagination harped at various cases of “troouble” he had known: -defalcations at the office, difficulties about money, fallings into -temptation. His countenance clouded with anxiety and alarm. “Amico,” he -said, “I am all at your disposition—all at your disposition! Troouble! -let us not lose the time. That turns me<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the stomach, as you say. -Thanks, thanks, Antonio; but take it away—I cannot more eat.”</p> - -<p>“That’s nonsense, old fellow,” said Harry, plying his own knife and fork -vigorously, “you see it don’t take away my appetite. Come, eat your -dinner. I’ve not been going to the bad, if that’s what you think, you -goose.”</p> - -<p>“Go-ose? I am willing to be goose,” said Paolo, “if it’s all right; not -anything in the bureau? not with accounts, or money, or nothing of the -sort? Benissimo?—then I will have some of that dish, Antonio, and it is -all right.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder what you take me for,” said Harry, offended. “Money! do you -think I am that sort? No, no, Paolo. When you’ve finished your -dinner—you have eaten nothing but that maccaroni—we’ll go to my rooms -and talk it over. It is something about myself.”</p> - -<p>It was all Harry could do after this to persuade his friend not to -gobble up everything that was offered to him in his anxiety to get his -meal over. Paolo could not contain his curiosity and eager interest. He -almost dragged his friend along the street when dinner was concluded, -and clambered the long staircase like a cat, in his eagerness to know -what Harry’s difficulty was, and to proceed immediately to smooth it -over and ravel it out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /><br /> -<small>PAOLO’S ADVICE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE room was large, and low, and white. There was a little balcony -hanging from the windows; the usual bright-coloured pattern on the -walls; the usual sofa and chairs, and little rug on the tiled floor. -Harry had not taken any particular care of his room or its decoration. -The lamp burned with three little clear tongues of flame in the centre -of the scene. Paolo sat in a large chair, thrown back, his little -intelligent, intent face showing from the dark background; his feet -flicking in front of him. As for Harry, he was too shy to sit still and -tell his story under the light of his friend’s large, eager eyes, which -leaped at the words before they were said. He was walking about from one -end of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> room to the other. On the table was the little coffee-pot, -the thick, white cups upon a tray. Harry did not despise black coffee -now. Sometimes he came up to the table, and poured it out and swallowed -it hastily; while all the time Paolo, swinging his foot in front of him, -and leaning back in his chair, never took from him his eager black eyes.</p> - -<p>“And the short and the long of it,” said Harry, “is that I have fallen -in love.” He turned his back to his companion as he spoke, and stood -looking out from the open window. “I have been about the house so much, -and seen the young lady so often, that without thinking, and without -meaning it, I have just fallen in love. Jove! what a beautiful night it -is!” said Harry; “I never saw the stars so bright: that’s just the -position of affairs. She is quite out of my rank, I know, as impossible -as the stars themselves: but that’s how it is.”</p> - -<p>“Fallen—in lofe?” Paolo mused for a moment over the words. “It is -droll, the English way of speaking. Is it then a deep, or a sea, or a -precipice, that you—fall.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t bother,” cried Harry. “To be sure it is a deep, and a sea, -and a precipice. Why,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> every fool knows that. You are never thinking of -anything of the sort, going along quite quietly, minding your own -business—when all in a moment down you go squash, and there’s no help -for you any more.”</p> - -<p>Paolo smiled a benevolent but somewhat tremulous smile.</p> - -<p>“The young lady is very beautiful—that goes without saying,” he said. -“I had thought you would have taken your freedom a little longer, and -you wish to marry and range yourself. <i>Bene!</i> it will be what you call -all oop with me,” said Paolo, with a slight quiver; “a wife—that goes -not along with a friend—not a friend of the heart like me. It makes a -beginning to many things, but also to some an end.”</p> - -<p>“Good gracious!” cried Harry, “do you mean to say you don’t understand -me? Am I in a condition to marry? I have not a penny. I have my little -salary, and that is all. If I could jump up and ask her to marry me, -above-board in our English way, do you think I’d ask any advice about -it? I don’t want you to tell me she’s nice, I know that myself a great -deal better than you could tell me. It is just because I can’t marry, -and ought to hold my tongue and never say a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> a word about it—and yet -can’t help seeing her continually, that I don’t know what to do.”</p> - -<p>Paolo looked at him with a still more wistful, anxious face. He was -terribly perplexed. There was an alternative which was not at all -impossible to his imagination; but having on many occasions already come -in contact forcibly with the English mind, as represented in Harry, he -was afraid to state or refer to the other side of the question, which -nevertheless was not at all terrible to himself. He looked very -wistfully and earnestly in his friend’s face, trying hard to read and -make out what was in it. What was in it? Did he mean——? Paolo could -not tell whether he might venture to say what he would have said easily -enough to many of his other friends.</p> - -<p>“You would then—that understands itself; but to put it into words, -above all with an English what you call Puritano—like you; you would -then—make a little arrangement—you would then propose—without going -to church.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?” said Harry. He turned round upon his friend with blazing eyes. -“Eh?” The monosyllable was more terrible than a whole chapter of -invectives. Astonishment, non-comprehension,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> yet at the same time -alarmed and furious understanding were in it. Paolo, who was a miracle -of quick intelligence, saw all that was in Harry’s look almost before he -himself was conscious of it, and he mended his indiscretion with the -rapidity of lightning.</p> - -<p>“I have make a mistake,” he said. “I have not understood. It is so -sudden, I had no preparation. If you will perhaps tell me again?”</p> - -<p>Harry stared with wide open eyes like a bull, not quite knowing whether -to charge an adversary, or to turn away from an insignificant intruder. -The more peaceable impulse prevailed. He had stood still gazing at -Paolo, who, mentally trembling, though he put the best face he could -outwardly upon the matter, met his friend’s gaze with a deprecating -smile. After a minute he resumed his pacing about the floor.</p> - -<p>“I see you don’t understand,” he said, with something between a groan -and a sigh. “Well then, I’ll try again. Here are the circumstances. I am -admitted to the house, a very nice house, in which I am very happy. The -father puts faith in me; he trusts me like a friend; the young lady -is—everything that is nice. Well! don’t you see? like a fool, instead -of keeping quiet and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> enjoying all this, like a fool I have gone and -fallen in love with her. And last night I was as near betraying -myself—— Now if I go on I’ll be more and more tempted to betray -myself. I can’t keep away from the house—it is not possible. I can’t -offer to the young lady because I am not good enough for her, and I have -no money. Now what am I to do?”</p> - -<p>“You were at the house of the Signor Vice-Consul last night?”</p> - -<p>“Never mind where I was,” said Harry sharply, “tell me what I am to do.”</p> - -<p>“It would be well, amico mio, that your confidence was more great, or -none at all,” said Paolo. “If it should happen that I possessed the -acquaintance of the father and the daughter——” There was a little -incipient smile upon his lip that drove Harry wild.</p> - -<p>“I believe you think badly of every woman,” he cried; “all the worse for -you if you do. I am not going to make any confidences of that sort. Look -here—you know more about society than I do. You know how people are -expected to behave here. Ought I just to cut the whole concern, though I -don’t want to—and take myself off?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Harry came to a sudden stop in front of his friend when he asked this -question, and, for his part, Paolo almost screamed with alarm.</p> - -<p>“Cut—the whole concern? That is to go away?”</p> - -<p>“To go away,” said Harry, discharging all the breath out of his -capacious chest in one great sigh, and throwing himself into the second -great chair opposite Paolo. His friend grew pale; his olive cheeks were -blanched; the lids were puckered round his anxious and almost despairing -eyes.</p> - -<p>“That is what you must not do—that is what you shall not do! It is not -permitted to throw away, to make such a sacrifice,” cried Paolo, with a -rapid succession of phrases, one broken sentence hurrying upon another. -“No, no, no, no. Imagine to yourself that all goes so well. The world -regards you with so favourable eyes; you are everywhere received, -everywhere received!—a favourite, Isaack mio. But no, no; this must not -be—for a girl—for a promise—for a caprice, you will not throw away -your career.”</p> - -<p>Harry did not say anything. He lay back drearily in his chair, his whole -person making one oblique line from his head, which rested on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> the back -of the chair, to the feet stretched out on the floor. He was not likely -to talk about his career, but he felt to the bottom of his heart the -dismal alternative: to go away; to throw up everything; to resign -himself to another new and much less favourable beginning. His new start -in Leghorn had been made in circumstances so extraordinarily favourable -that they looked like a romance, and he himself could scarcely believe -them true—all the more reason why he should not presume now upon the -hospitality of the house which had taken him in; but he never could by -any possibility hope for such another piece of good fortune. In all this -he put Rita herself out of the question. Perhaps he did not feel, as a -lover sometimes does, as if his entire life was involved in her -acceptance of him. He was a sober-minded young man. It would cost him a -great wrench, it would take the colour and the pleasure out of his life -if he were banished from the happy rooms in which she reigned. But yet, -honour requiring it, he could do this and live; he was not afraid of -himself so far. But how to continue here in the enjoyment of his other -advantages and withdraw from the house in which he had been received so -kindly, he did<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> not know. It would be impossible without explanations, -and what explanation could he give?</p> - -<p>“Look you ’ere,” said Paolo, rising in his turn, taking advantage of all -the devices of oratory to move his friend, “lofe, that is one thing; -life, that is another. For a capriccio I say nothing. We all have such; -by times it will seem as though you live not but in possession of the -object; but after, that will pass, and you will laugh, and all will go -on as before.”</p> - -<p>“Hold your tongue; you don’t know anything about it,” said Harry, with a -contemptuous wave of the hand.</p> - -<p>“I have had my experiences like another,” said Paolo, mildly. “I am not -an ignorant. It is for a moment you suffer, you think all is ovare. -But—oh, bah!—when it is ovare so many things remain. There is the -bureau,” said Paolo, counting on his fingers, “there are the events of -the day; there is the table—for you must always eat; there is -society—which is made,” he added sententiously, “of other objects. In -brief, amico mio, there is to live. That must be done all the same. For -the moment it may be hard—but sooner or later the time of calm will -arrive—What then? If it be certain that an hour will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> come when you -will have had enough, when you will become weary——”</p> - -<p>Harry sat up in his chair. “What are you talking about?” he said.</p> - -<p>With his honest English imagination he did not know what the other -meant. He had never read a French novel in his life (he could not, -indeed, if he had wished), nor any English ones of that sort. According -to him, when a man “fell in love” it was with the intention of marrying -the girl he loved, and living happy ever after. The idea that it would -last only for so long, and that there would come a time when you would -have enough, and be weary—a moment which must arrive sooner or -later—was such a thing as had no meaning to him. Paolo turned, too, -when his friend said this, and gazed at him, startled and wondering. -Suddenly the little Italian became aware that he was speaking another -language, a tongue unknown to Harry. He did not know Harry’s tongue so -far as this went, but being very quick and intelligent he perceived at -once that it was not the same as his, and that in speaking as he did he -had completely missed Harry’s comprehension. This took away from him the -power of speech. How was he to find out Harr<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>y’s language? They remained -for a full minute thus, baffled each by each, gazing at each other: -Paolo, small and keen, trying hard to make his friend out; Harry, large, -obtuse, confused, wondering what on heaven and earth this strange little -being could mean.</p> - -<p>“Look here,” he said at last, “I’m English, you know. I don’t follow you -a bit. Perhaps you’re too refined, and all that. You don’t fathom my -difficulty, and I don’t understand in the least what you mean. Here’s -what I want: just listen. I am fond of a girl, but I daren’t tell her -I’m fond of her, because you know I have nothing to marry on, and I am -not such a cur as to ask her to bury herself up for years waiting for -me; and besides, it wouldn’t be handsome to her father, who has been -very kind to me. What am I to do? Ought I to go right away? I don’t want -to do that. Or can you tell me how I’m to put a padlock on my tongue, -and go on seeing her, and never betray myself? No, by Jove! I don’t -think I am strong enough for that.”</p> - -<p>“There is one thing will make it more easy,” said Paolo—he had dived -deep into the records of his own experience to find precedents, but he -found nothing which could throw any light upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> so strange a case, and -he was now casting about blindly for something to say—“there is one -thing. This lady, this Signorina—is she then—what shall you call it? -disposed to respond to you?”</p> - -<p>Harry’s face grew crimson. He gave a rapid glance back upon all their -intercourse. He seemed to see Rita’s unconscious, tranquil face. Even -when he had made that foolish speech about taking her to England she had -been moved not a hair’s breadth. She had taken it with perfect calm, as -one who had never thought upon the subject might quite well do. “I don’t -think so,” he said, quickly, not looking his friend in the face.</p> - -<p>“Then it is moche more easy,” said Paolo. “There is nothing to do, amico -mio, but to be silent—what you call hold your tongue: and all will be -ovare. When the lady will respond it is different—when she will give -you a glance, a smile, a permission to say what perhaps ought not to be -said.”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing of the kind in the whole business,” said Harry, -bluntly; “you are thinking of your intrigues, and all that Italian -nonsense. English girls don’t understand it any more than I do.”</p> - -<p>“Then the Signorina—is English?” Paolo ven<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>tured here to give vent to a -little laugh. “But you must not be too secure that she understands no -more than you. Perhaps there is in the lady a little Italian blood!”</p> - -<p>“Paolo,” said Harry, “you have the most unreasonable, idiotic, offensive -prejudice against——”</p> - -<p>And here he paused—for had he not been careful all this time to keep in -the background the name of the lady? He stopped, and he looked at Paolo -with curious, anxious, defiant eyes.</p> - -<p>Paolo would have laughed had he dared: but he did not venture to laugh. -It was too serious. “I have no prejudice,” he said. “It may be that I -think a little in Italian, one cannot help one’s thoughts. But then why -will you ask me? If the lady is indifferent where then is the difficulty -of to hold your tongue? But if that is otherwise—listen. The papa, it -is to him one speaks when it is of marriage. Love, that is another -thing. You do not understand, amico,” said Paolo, with a plaintive tone, -“the difference. There is great difference. They are two things -all-together. Marriage,” once more he counted upon his fingers, “that -will mean the papa; love—ah! that will mean the moment, the -opportunity, the response.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>To these last words Harry paid no attention. He scarcely heard them. But -the others seemed to throw a sudden light upon the whole subject. He -rose up again and resumed his promenade about the room, biting his nails -and knitting his brows. “By Jove,” he said, at last, “Paul-o, you’re not -half such a foolish little beggar as you look. That is the thing to do. -I wonder I never thought of it myself. To be sure, that’s the thing to -do.”</p> - -<p>“What is the thing to do?” Paolo asked, bewildered. But his friend made -him no direct answer. After a good deal more of that pacing up and down, -he came back and patted his counsellor on the back so vigorously that he -almost took away Paolo’s breath.</p> - -<p>“That is the very thing,” Harry said. “You are a clever little beggar -after all. I should never have hit it out all by myself; but I see now, -it’s the right thing to do. Not too easy though; I can’t say that I -shall like it a bit; but one can see in a moment that it’s the right -thing to do.”</p> - -<p>“What is the right thing?” Paolo asked again; but he got no reply. Harry -fell a-musing as he sometimes did, letting the little Italian go on with -talk, to which his friend paid no attention;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> and afterwards he walked -with Paolo to his rooms, paying just as little regard to what he said. -It was another clear, starlight night, soft and cool as the nights are -in an Italian spring. There was no chill to freeze the blood; but all -was balmy and soft. He went along the streets with their high houses -reaching almost up to the sky, looking up to the narrow lane of radiant -blue above, all living and sweet with stars. He thought his problem over -again, going step by step over the same way which he had traversed -before—and it seemed to him that he had at last found the true and the -only solution. He could not withdraw himself from the Vice-Consul’s -house without an explanation; that would be impossible; therefore the -only thing to be done was to go to the Vice-Consul himself, and tell him -how the case stood. “I cannot be sure of myself if I go on seeing her -every day; therefore I must give up seeing her every day, and you must -know why.” Probably he would not tell his story so briefly as this; -there would be explanations to give, and many digressions probably from -the main theme; but that in effect would be all that Harry would have to -say; and certainly it was the right thing to do. He took it for granted -that Paolo had suggested it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> though in reality it was an alternative of -a much less satisfactory kind that Paolo had suggested; but all the rest -that he had said vanished from Harry’s practical mind, leaving this one -piece of advice behind, and no more. Paolo was no fool, though his way -of thinking might not be much like an Englishman’s. Englishmen did not -go to the father first, but to the daughter, to know what their chances -were; but for once in a way the other mode was the best. He took a long -walk after he left his friend, traversing all the streets which now he -knew so well, and further still to where the salt air of the sea blew in -his face, and refreshed his soul. He would not trifle with the occasion, -but go at once to-morrow and get it off his mind. So he said to himself. -And he came home past the house from which he was henceforward to be -banished. It was late, and the sitting-rooms were all dark; but Harry -knew that a little light in one window indicated Rita’s room—probably -the faint little <i>veilleuse</i> which watched over her sleep; and that in -another was the lamp by which the Vice-Consul was smoking his last -cigar. He stood and looked piteously at the house. It had been a kind of -home to him, in one way more than his own home had ever been.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> Standing -outside in the night it appeared beautiful to him, as never house had -appeared before. He had not appreciated the <i>bric-à-brac</i>, or known what -to say about the pictures; but now each article of the furniture -suddenly appeared to him in a new light. It was all beautiful; it was -such a place as a palace might be—a house for a queen; and to think -that he had almost lived in it for so long, and that now he was to enter -there no more! Harry was not like the Peri at the gate of Paradise; he -had a still more pathetic, a heart-rending sense of loss. He had been -there yesterday; but he was not to be there again perhaps for ever. Why -should he go away? and yet he must go away; he must keep himself at a -distance from those dear doors. Slowly there gathered in his eyes a -painful dew; it did not fall in tears, which he would have scorned -himself for shedding, but it blurred and magnified all he saw. Yesterday -so much at home, so familiar in the place, to-morrow with no entrance -possible to him any more! and all by no fault of his or anyone’s; by no -levity on <i>her</i> part, or presumption on his; all unawares, no one -thinking of any danger. It seemed to Harry, standing outside there, as -if there was something very hard in such a wayward<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> accident of fate, as -if some malign spirit must have taken pleasure in twisting the threads -wrongly; in making trouble out of the most innocent situations in life. -He had never meant to go further than liking—no one could help going as -far as liking; but the unlucky fellow, without meaning it, had taken the -step farther, and loved; and now all his card-castle of happiness had -tumbled down, and everything was over. There was nothing wrong in it—no -fault in it one way or another: and yet a great many faults would have -produced less confusion and pain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /><br /> -<small>WITH HER FATHER.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>EXT morning Harry went to the office with an air of resolution about -him which no one could have mistaken. He thought the others looked at -him curiously with investigating eyes, which, indeed, was true enough; -for his predecessor there never could make out how it was that the -stranger had gained so much interest with the Consul, and Paolo, who was -the only other person present, was full of the most anxious wonder and -suspense. But, as it happened, Harry was kept so fully occupied all day -that he could not say a word to the Vice-Consul, and his air of -resolution and sense of being wound up for a great crisis, came to -nothing. But he did not go near the Consulate in the evening. Had things -been in their ordinary course he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> would, in the most natural way, and, -indeed, with a semblance of necessity, have proceeded there to consult -Mr. Bonamy about some matter of business, or to ask directions from him. -But he forbore. He sat in his own rooms all the evening, feeling it -unutterably long, trying to amuse himself with reading, and finding very -little amusement in that somewhat unwonted exercise. He had been -“reading up,” with a great deal of industry and some interest, books -which he had heard discussed in the Vice-Consul’s house, and in this way -had at least procured a good deal of information, the advantage of which -was evident. But Harry had not read for enjoyment, and now that things -had come to this pass, and that he was about to be compelled to give up -the society of the Bonamys, and lose the gratification of pleasing Rita, -it seemed to his practical mind that there was no great reason for -continuing those studies. It was quite likely that he never would live -among such people again, and why should he take so much trouble—trouble -taken with the idea of pleasing them? it was no longer worth his while. -He was driven back to his books indeed by the tedium of the long, -unoccupied evening, for he had no heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> to go out, to be waylaid by -Paolo, and have questions put to him which he would find it very -difficult to answer. But he yawned a great deal, and went to bed very -early, and slept badly in consequence, tossing about for two hours and -hearing the melancholy clocks peal. Next day he was resolved he must -speak. Indeed, it would be indispensable that he should, as it was the -day on which Rita received, and he had never yet been absent from her -drawing-room on that special evening. He had a good opportunity this -time, for the Vice-Consul called for him as soon as he appeared after -his luncheon, and bade him bring certain papers to be examined. “I quite -expected you to have brought them last night,” Mr. Bonamy said. “For two -nights we have not seen you, Oliver. Rita was asking me to-day whether -you were ill. I hope you are not ill. There’s no fever here that I know -of; still it is always well to take care.”</p> - -<p>“I am not ill, Sir,” said Harry, colouring high, and then growing pale; -“but there was another reason. I should like to speak to you for a few -minutes, about myself, if you could spare the time.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I can spare you the time,” said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> Vice-Consul, readily; -“but not now, you know. Come to me again as soon as the office is -closed. Shall we talk your business over here, or in the house?”</p> - -<p>“Here, if you please,” said Harry.</p> - -<p>“Here be it, then. Do you know you excite my curiosity? you look so -serious. But I hope it’s nothing disagreeable, nothing to interfere with -our alliance?” said the Vice-Consul, good-humouredly. He thought he knew -exactly what it was. No doubt the family had found him out, and Harry -was about to be recalled to its bosom. This would give Mr. Bonamy -himself a little regret, and he could understand that to leave a place -where everybody had been kind to him would be a sort of trial to the -young man; but at the same time it was far better for him that he should -be reconciled to his family. So he went through his business with a -little gentle interest, looking forward to the <i>éclaircissement</i>. It was -like the third volume of a novel to the Vice-Consul, and even something -more than that, more than the mere end of a story which had interested -him—for it would also settle various questions in his mind, and prove -if he had been right or not in the instantaneous opinion which he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> -formed about Harry’s concerns. He felt quite sure that he would prove to -have been right. By the time Harry returned to him, after the work of -the afternoon was done, he had made out within himself quite what the -scene was to be. The young man would say: “My father is here;” or “My -brother is here,” as might be; and a hale, hearty old country gentleman, -or a young, ruddy, fresh-coloured youth, like Harry himself, would be -brought in and presented to him, and he would give himself the -gratification of saying, “This is precisely how I expected it would be; -I have been looking for you this past year daily, though I had no notion -who you were.” When Harry came back with the same face of serious -excitement the Consul almost laughed. “Bring them in, bring them in,” he -said, “I have nothing to say against you. You need not be afraid that I -will give you a bad character.” Harry looked at him with that look of -blank astonishment which so often turns into lofty superiority and -disapproval of their seniors’ folly in youthful eyes.</p> - -<p>“Bring—whom in?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Your people, to be sure, my dear Oliver. Come, Oliver, I am not an old -wife; you can’t conceal it from me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I know nothing about my people,” said Harry, hastily; “I have nothing -more to say about them than I have already told you. Things are exactly -as they were between them and me. What I have got to tell you is a very -different sort of thing. But you will see by it, at least, Sir, that I -have no wish to conceal anything from you.”</p> - -<p>“Bless my soul!” said the Vice-Consul, “what’s the matter? Have you got -into any scrape? Have you come in contact with the police? What is the -matter, my boy?”</p> - -<p>“It is nothing outside of this house, Sir,” Harry said, with a grave -smile; “the police have got nothing to say to it. If it is a scrape it -is one I have got myself into, and I must get myself out of it. Anyhow, -it is not likely to hurt anybody but myself,” and here, in spite of all -his precautions, his lip quivered a little. At this moment, the very -worst for such a strong wave of feeling, it suddenly came over him what -a tremendous change it would be, and how much it would hurt himself—if -nobody else.</p> - -<p>“You alarm me,” said Mr. Bonamy, growing grave in his turn. “My dear -fellow, I hope you feel that I take an interest in everything that -con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>cerns you, and that you may safely confide in me——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Sir, I am sure of that,” said Harry; and then he added; “all the -more that it concerns you too.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Bonamy pushed away his chair from the table, opened his eyes wide, -and looked at Harry as if he thought him mad.</p> - -<p>“I can’t come to your house any more, Sir,” said Harry, “that’s what I -wanted to tell you. I’ve enjoyed it very much, and it has done me more -good than anything else in my life—but I ought not to do it, and I -can’t do it any longer. I hope you won’t think I am an ungrateful cur; I -don’t think I am that. But I must give it up, Sir, and I hope you’ll -excuse me for it. I’d rather not say any more.”</p> - -<p>“Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul, greatly disturbed, “what is the meaning -of this? Do you mean there is something in your past—something in your -character and actions that makes you unfit to be my visitor? I have -always trusted in your honour. If it’s that, and your conscience has -been quickened to find it out, of course I have nothing more to say.”</p> - -<p>“It’s not that,” said Harry, bluntly. “I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> not afraid of my -conscience. It says as much to me, I suppose, as to other people; but -you might hear all it says and welcome. There is nothing against my -character here or elsewhere. You know as much harm of me as there is to -know.”</p> - -<p>“I know no harm of you,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, don’t alarm -me. If you find we don’t suit you—though by your manner I should never -have guessed it—why, then, give us up, my fine fellow, and there’s no -more to be said.”</p> - -<p>Harry laughed a somewhat tremulous laugh.</p> - -<p>“I should think you did suit me,” he said. “I don’t believe I was ever -half so happy before.”</p> - -<p>“Then, in the name of wonder, what does this mean?” the Vice-Consul -cried.</p> - -<p>Harry cleared his throat; his lips were beginning to get parched and his -throat was dry.</p> - -<p>“Did you never hear, Sir,” he said, abruptly, “of a fellow falling in -love—with a girl he’d no business to fall in love with?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Bonamy half rose out of his chair, then changed his mind and dropped -back again. His own face became suffused with colour. A sudden -exclamation came from his lips it spite of himself.</p> - -<p>“Is this what has happened to you?” he said.</p> - -<p>“This is what has happened to me,” said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> Harry. “I’m very sorry—nobody -can be more sorry—it shuts me out from a great deal I had got to be -proud of, and happy in. I wish I had made any blunder in the world -rather than this; but it’s done, and I can’t help it. So the only thing -I have got to do now is—— well, either to stay away from the house, or -to go away altogether, as you think best.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose then that at my house you run the risk,” said the -Vice-Consul, with suspicious breaks in his words, either of doubt or -excitement, “of meeting—the young lady?”</p> - -<p>Harry did not say a word; but he looked at him fixedly, with a deep -colour flaming over his face. At this the Vice-Consul gazed at him with -an alarmed expression, gradually catching fire too.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean to say——?” he cried, and then he was silent, and there -ensued a confused and uncomfortable pause.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Sir,” said Harry. He had looked his chief in the face all this -time; but now he avoided the other’s eye, “that is just how it stands. I -told you it was not my fault. I never thought of such a thing. It -never,” he said, putting out his hand to a bundle of papers upon the -table by which he was standing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> and turning them vaguely over and over, -“it never—happened to me before.”</p> - -<p>When the Vice-Consul looked at him standing there, with that look of -half-astonished simplicity on his face, and those artless words on his -lips, it was all he could do to keep in an outburst of laughter. He -thought he had never come in contact with so simple-minded, and candid, -and honourable a fellow. He was startled and alarmed, and made uneasy by -his confession; but yet he had the greatest desire to laugh. Yet why -should he laugh? it was serious enough; his lively mind jumped to the -possibility that his Rita might prefer this young stranger to himself. -It would be an extraordinary choice, he could not but think; but yet, -alas! that was how things often were in this strange world. A girl would -prefer a man she had seen three or four times in a ball-room, to the -father whose very existence she was; and nobody would be surprised at -it; it was the course of nature; it was the way of the world. This idea -chilled and alarmed him to the bottom of his heart; but yet he could -hardly help laughing at Harry and his perturbed air. “I never thought of -such a thing—it never happened before.” The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> Consul was almost too much -amused to take in the seriousness of the event.</p> - -<p>“I presume you have said nothing to her,” he said at last, looking -portentously serious by reason of the inclination to untimely mirth, -which he had to subdue.</p> - -<p>“That is just the thing,” cried Harry, rousing up from his bashful -pre-occupation. “No, I have not spoken—what you would call speaking; -but on Monday night I just dropped a word——”</p> - -<p>“Good Lord!” cried the Vice-Consul. He had no longer any inclination to -laugh; what he was disposed to do was to take the young fellow by the -throat.</p> - -<p>“You can’t be more frightened than I was,” said Harry, ingenuously. “It -was by that I found out. Of course I knew I admired—<i>her</i> more than -anybody I had ever seen; but I had no more notion how far it had -gone—— and then like a fool I began to speak of going home to England, -and how I was sure I could take her all safe if she would go with me. -That was all: I assure you that was all,” cried Harry, discomposed by -Mr. Bonamy’s look and manner. He was alarmed by this look: the -Vice-Consul had risen up, trembling with wrath.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I would like to know,” he cried, “what more you could have said!—what -more could you wish to say? And this is what you call love! To betray my -child; to propose death to her—death! Oh, boy, boy, do you know what -you are doing in your folly and simplicity; beguiling her to her death, -and me to—— Good God! why should I always be such a fool? Why did I -have this fellow here?”</p> - -<p>“You are judging me too harshly, Sir,” cried Harry; “you think it was a -great deal worse than really happened. She never took any notice of it; -it hadn’t the least meaning to her. She asked me did I know -something—some physic I suppose,” Harry said, in a kind of parenthesis, -with disdain—“that would make it safe. That was all she thought of it; -but as for me, as soon as I had said it I came to myself. I’ve had a -dreadful time of it since,” he added once more, with that air of -downright sincerity and solemnity which made the Vice-Consul wish to -smile. “I’ve turned over every kind of plan in my mind. Sometimes I’ve -thought of going right away; but that seemed hard, too, when I had just -got settled here. And at the last the right thing seemed just to come -and tell you. Of course I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> put myself in your hands. I’ll do whatever -you think it proper I should do: give up the office; go away from the -town; anything you please. I don’t want to leave you—or her,” cried -Harry. “God knows! you have been so kind to me!”</p> - -<p>And then the Vice-Consul, hearing the young fellow’s voice falter, and -seeing that he kept his eyes down to conceal the water that had got into -them, felt a little knot in his throat too, and was melted in spite of -himself.</p> - -<p>“Oliver,” he said, “I don’t want to be hard upon you. You said she took -no notice—that is just like her; she is no coquette, my girl; she is -very innocent. I daresay it never occurred to her that you meant -anything.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think it did, Sir,” Harry said eagerly. Of course he had no -clue to Rita’s retirement to her own room, or the amused consideration -she gave to the subject there.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to be hard upon you,” Mr. Bonamy repeated, “if that is the -case. Answer me one more thing, Oliver, and answer it on your honour. -Have you any reason to think (that I should have to put such a -question?) that if you had spoken out more plainly, she—— Heavens! I -can’t put it into words.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“How could I,” cried Harry, almost provoked, “have reason to think -anything about it, when I never even suspected myself? It was that word -that opened my eyes.”</p> - -<p>And then there was another pause. Harry stood turning over and over that -bundle of papers. He looked at them as if he thought they contained some -secret of state. He took them in his hand as if anxious to know how many -ounces they weighed. His face wore a look of the gravest stolid -seriousness. He had now withdrawn from the consideration of his duty, or -what he ought to do, and put it into another person’s hands. He was -freed of the responsibility, and he had only to wait now to see what he -should be told to do.</p> - -<p>Then once more a sense of the humour of the situation intruded upon its -seriousness in the Vice-Consul’s eyes. His anger and alarm were quenched -in a sense of the absolute simplicity and honesty of the culprit, and a -hope that no harm had been done. Mr. Bonamy began to breathe freely -again, even to smile.</p> - -<p>“Sit down,” he said, “and let us talk this over. I don’t blame you, -Oliver. I can understand that you were not seriously to blame; and, if -no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> harm is done—I suppose you will promise me that it shall not occur -again.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Sir,” said Harry, “that is just what I should like to be able to -do; but seeing I was such a fool as to do it once, how can I tell that I -may not be a greater fool again? especially as then I did not know -anything about it, whereas I know all about it now.”</p> - -<p>“That is just the reason,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Now you are on your guard, -and you will know when to be watchful. I can’t give you permission to -make love to—my daughter, Oliver. I suppose you did not expect I -could?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” cried Harry, eagerly; “not in the least. I could not, of -course, even if you did, for I have no money. I could no more marry than -I could fly.”</p> - -<p>“Marry!” cried the Vice-Consul. The young man said the word in the most -matter-of-fact way, but it took away the other’s breath. “Do you know -what you are doing?” he cried; “you are putting a knife to my throat. -Marry! That means that if you could you would break up this home of mine -in which you confess you have been received so kindly. You would rob me -of all I have. You would take from me everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> that makes life -precious. For what, young man, for what? Because you admire a pretty -face! You don’t know any more of her—I am not sure that you are able to -appreciate any more of her. But she is everything in the world—she is -all that makes life worth living—to me.”</p> - -<p>Harry threw down the bundle of papers and looked across the table with -the intensest astonishment. “Do you mean,” he said, “that you don’t -intend her ever to be married at all? Is nobody to have the chance? Is -she always to be kept up in one place, and never to settle, nor have her -own choice and her own life?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Bonamy felt as if he were being stoned—one solid, heavy fact tossed -at him after another; and looked at his questioner with a sort of gasp -between the blows. He faltered after a while, “She is very young. She -has everything that her heart can desire. Why should she not be content, -at least for years to come, in her father’s house?”</p> - -<p>“I always understood, Sir,” said Harry, with his usual -straightforwardness, “that the right thing for girls was to marry when -they were young, and that parents were supposed to wish it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“To scheme for it, perhaps?” said Mr. Bonamy, furiously, “and put out -all sorts of snares to catch young fellows like you—eh? To lay traps -for you, and lead you on, and give you encouragement and opportunity, -and so forth? Perhaps you think that’s what I’ve been doing—eh? God -forgive me,” he said, “in my day I’ve said that sort of thing, and -believed it myself; I’ve sneered and scoffed like the rest—and now I’ve -got my punishment. You think there is nothing so fine for a girl as to -get married—eh?”</p> - -<p>Harry was struck with consternation by this attack; but yet, feeling -that he had right on his side, he stood his ground. “I am not saying -anything about <i>you</i>, Sir,” he said, “but surely it is thought the best -thing that could happen. I’ve always heard it. Fathers and mothers, you -know, Sir, don’t generally live as long as their children—at least, -that is what is supposed—and they like to see their daughters settled, -don’t they, before they die?”</p> - -<p>This was what the French would call a brutal speech—for, in the first -place, it was true; and then Mr. Bonamy was at an age which seemed old -to Harry, but rather young than otherwise to himself, and he was not at -all pleased to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> it taken for granted that he must shortly be going -to die. Yes, of course Rita would outlive him, would live long, he -hoped, after him; but still the idea that there was any need to marry -her off in haste, lest he might die and leave her before she -was—settled, was most repugnant to him; it went to his heart, wounding -him with a possibility which he had no desire to think of; and it made -him hot and angry, as if it had been a personal insult. No one likes to -be told that he has come to a period of life at which it is more likely -than otherwise that he will shortly die, and that it is very necessary -to take precautions against that event. It was all he could do to keep -from bursting out upon Harry, crushing him with a bitter rejoinder. He -to address his benefactor thus! He to speak in this tone to the man who -had received him when nobody else would, who had lifted him out of all -the difficulties of a stranger, and opened not only his office, which -gave him bread, but his house, which gave him friends, and position, and -everything a young man could wish for! These words were rushing to Mr. -Bonamy’s lips, when fortunately a sense of his personal dignity, and of -the impropriety of any such demonstration, came in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> and stopped him. -Harry’s speech, after all, was good common sense, just the sort of thing -that everybody says; the world was on that side of the question. Perhaps -prudence and the foresight which love itself ought to possess was on -that side too. So he was silent, repressing the first instinct of reply. -When he was able to do it, he answered with as much self-possession as -he could muster.</p> - -<p>“I admire your prudence, Mr. Oliver. I hope you will always see your own -duties with the same clearness which you display about those of others; -and I have no doubt you are quite right; but it is a question which I -don’t care to discuss. Let me say, before we finish this talk, that I -think you have behaved very honourably, and as a gentleman should; and I -quite accept your reason for coming to my house much less frequently. I -will make your excuses to my daughter; and nothing that has passed need -make any difference in our official relations,” he added, looking up -with a smile that was sharp and cold, not like his usual sunshine, “in -that respect there is no possible reason why everything should not go on -as before.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, Sir,” said Harry, getting up with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> some confusion. The -conversation had been going on so long, and so much less indignation -than he expected had been in the Vice-Consul’s air at the beginning, -that this sudden sentence confounded him. He was quite ready, when he -began, to be taken at his word; but somehow he was not now so ready; the -bitterness had seemed to be past, and he had hoped that the indulgent -and fatherly friend before him would have found some way by which he -should still be permitted to come and go. But now all at once Harry -found himself, in his own words, “shut up,” and had nothing to do but to -stumble to his feet as quickly as he could, and take himself off, much -subdued and astonished, to his desk in the outer office—where he gave -his mind to his business, not too clearly, but with as much devotion as -was practicable, for the rest of the day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /><br /> -<small>RITA’S OPINION.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HESE two men, however, though they were disposed to think themselves -the chief, or, indeed, only persons concerned, were by no means the -masters of the situation, as they supposed. Rita took Harry’s absence -from her drawing-room quite lightly at first, so lightly that her -father’s mind was entirely relieved. He had been afraid that her -astonishment, if nothing else, would have been great, and that she would -have asked him a hundred questions—questions which it might have given -him some trouble to answer. But she took it quite quietly, and said -nothing about it for a week or two, till the Vice-Consul was of opinion -that all danger was passed. About this time, however, Rita, by one of -those<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> accidents which occur perversely to heighten the embarrassment of -every domestic crisis, met Harry suddenly on one of her walks, coming -upon him round a corner without any warning to either party. Her usual -attendant, Benedetta, was with the young lady, who looked up brightly -with surprise and pleasure, and held out her hand.</p> - -<p>“What has become of you all this time?” she said, in her kind, soft -voice.</p> - -<p>On Harry, for his part, the effect of so suddenly coming in sight of -her, and of her frank accost, was too remarkable to escape Rita’s quick -eye. He fell backward a step, swerved from his course, gave a glance -round him, as if in search of some way of escape, then, seeing none, -took her offered hand gingerly, just touched and dropped it, his face -flushing crimson, his voice faltering.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am very well, thank you,” was the answer he made; and then stood -and stared at her for a moment, and, without replying to any of her -questions, went on again confusedly, leaving her standing still gazing -after him in a state of mingled dismay and consternation.</p> - -<p>“What can have happened to him?” Rita said to herself, unconsciously -aloud: and “I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> the gentleman must be mad,” said tranquilly the -good Benedetta, who thought the English were all a little insane, and -that it was nothing much out of the way. But that evening when dinner -was over it was the Vice-Consul’s turn to be undeceived.</p> - -<p>“Papa,” said Rita, suddenly (she had let him have his dinner first, -which showed consideration), “what is the matter with Mr. Oliver?”</p> - -<p>The Vice-Consul was like a ship at sea, into whose innocent hulk a -sudden broadside is poured without any sort of warning; he dipped his -sails, so to speak, all his timbers thrilled and shivered. He had not -been in the least prepared for any such assault.</p> - -<p>“Oliver?” he said, trying to put on an exaggerated look of innocence, -“Oliver? what’s the matter with him? What should be the matter with him? -He is all right for anything I know.”</p> - -<p>“He is not all right,” said Rita; “he has not been here for a fortnight, -he who used to come almost every night; and you should have seen him -when I met him to-day; I thought he would have run away. He tried it, I -declare. He looked all round to see if he could not make his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> escape, -and when I cried out, ‘What has become of you?’ he said, ‘Very well, -thank you!’ Was there ever anything so absurd? I like him for that, he -is so English, and so absurd.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see anything absurd about it,” said the Vice-Consul, with a -very grave countenance.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you, papa? you are growing dull, you have been very dull for some -time back. Since Mr. Oliver ran away! Perhaps it is because of that. -Perhaps it is the same thing that has affected you both.”</p> - -<p>“You pay me a high compliment,” said Mr. Bonamy, nettled, “to think that -my dulness, as you are pleased to call it, should result from the -withdrawal of Oliver; he is not such a shining light.”</p> - -<p>“No, he is not a shining light,” said Rita, “he is perhaps just a little -dull himself; that is why I like him. He never tries to say clever -things, he is never a bit brilliant, he never even pretends to -understand when he doesn’t understand, but looks at you with nice, -round, wide-open, surprised sort of eyes. That is just what I like him -for. He is always himself.”</p> - -<p>To this the Vice-Consul made no reply, but, hoping to change the -conversation, said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> “By the way, I’ve got you that book you were -talking so much about; nobody had it here, so I sent to Paris——”</p> - -<p>“That was very good of you, papa; but I can’t let you run off like that. -Let us finish one subject before we begin another. What is the matter -with Mr. Oliver? Why did he come every night, and then leave off coming -all at once?”</p> - -<p>“What a fool I was to think I was going to be let off so easily!” Mr. -Bonamy breathed to himself. “My dear Rita,” he said, “I don’t see why -you should be so anxious about Oliver. It was a mistake having him here -so much at the first.”</p> - -<p>“Why was it a mistake? you never thought it was a mistake till now. What -has happened? I am more and more puzzled with every word you say. Papa!” -cried Rita, stamping her little foot on the floor, “don’t trifle with -me, for I am determined to find it out.”</p> - -<p>“Then you must just find it out your own way,” cried the Vice-Consul, -angry with the anger of impotence; for he knew very well he could not -resist her, and that it was only a matter of minutes how long she would -take to find the necessary clue.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do you mean to say you will not tell me?” cried Rita, with wondering, -wide-open eyes.</p> - -<p>“My dear child,” said the unfortunate Vice-Consul, “you are making it of -far too much importance. What does it matter about this young fellow one -way or the other? He came, he has gone; we ought not, perhaps, to have -given him so readily the run of the house.”</p> - -<p>“Has anything—wrong—been found out about him, papa?”</p> - -<p>“Bless my soul, no! nothing wrong; on the contrary!” cried poor Mr. -Bonamy; “for I won’t take away a man’s character behind his back—he has -behaved like a gentleman, quite like a gentleman; about that there is -not a word to say.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Rita, “he would behave like a gentleman, for he is a -gentleman; but on what pretext, then, have you banished him from the -house?”</p> - -<p>“Rita,” cried her father, “I wish you would not talk of things you don’t -understand! Am I the sort of man to banish a young fellow from my house? -If you <i>will</i> know, it was he that did it himself.”</p> - -<p>Rita opened her eyes wider than ever. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> laughed, though a little -angry colour came to her face.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it was he, then, who disapproved of us?” she said.</p> - -<p>What was the Vice-Consul to do?</p> - -<p>“That is nonsense,” said he, “he neither disapproved of us, nor did I -disapprove of him; but there might be other reasons. We thought, both of -us, both he and I, that it was as well—he should not come—so -often—for a time, at least.”</p> - -<p>“So often? but he never comes at all,” cried the inquisitive girl, “and -when I met him he wanted to run away. Don’t you see all this is absurd, -papa? If you want me to believe you, tell me the right reason. I will -not be satisfied till you tell me the right reason. Do you think I can -be taken in with pretences of that sort?”</p> - -<p>“Rita, you annoy me very much, you distress me. I don’t know why you -should drive me into a corner like this,” the Vice-Consul said -piteously.</p> - -<p>“But I want to drive you into a corner, I must drive you into a corner; -for I insist now upon knowing what it is. I might have let it pass -before, but now I insist upon it, you must tell me, papa.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The poor man gave a deep sigh.</p> - -<p>“You take a very unfair advantage,” he said; “you compel me to betray -poor Oliver and to distress myself. And I warn you that it will make you -blush, that you will feel very uncomfortable.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind blushing,” Rita said; and as she spoke a sudden suffusion -of heat and colour came all over her. She blushed from the crown of her -head to the soles of her feet. It was a strange sensation, but it was -not altogether disagreeable. The girl had as little idea of any painful -or shameful occasion for blushing as if she had been a baby; and she met -the father’s eyes quite steadily all the same.</p> - -<p>“I never saw a creature so pertinacious,” said poor Mr. Bonamy. “Well, -then, if you must know. It is because of you that young Oliver is not -coming here any more.”</p> - -<p>“Because of me!” She was too much astonished to blush now, and then she -had already had her blush out.</p> - -<p>“Just because of you. He has been so silly as to fall in love with you, -and feeling that it would be dishonourable to me to continue to come -here, this being the case, he has explained it all and withdrawn. There -is now the short and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> the long of it, Rita. You have no right to say a -word against poor Oliver. He has paid you, as people say, the highest -compliment a man can pay a woman, and he has acted in the most -honourable way to me; feeling that he cannot be quite sure of not -betraying himself if he continues to come, he has ceased to come. He -would have left the place altogether if I had asked such a sacrifice of -him. He has behaved in the most gentlemanly, honourable way. He tells me -he did say something, but he did not know whether you understood it or -not.”</p> - -<p>Rita was struck dumb. She sat and gazed at her father silently while he -spoke, too curious and strongly interested even to be abashed by this -strange news. She blushed no more. Having paid that one tribute of -startled maidenliness to the new revelation, she was too much impressed -and overwhelmed by it for any lighter feeling. She sat in an attitude of -the most absorbed attention, her eyes fixed upon her father’s face, her -lips a little apart, the breath coming quickly. She was astonished, yet -not so much astonished as overawed, penetrated by the news. When her -father ceased speaking, she continued the same rapt aspect of attention. -He thought she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> have been shame-faced, blushing, shy of it, unable -to look him in the face; but he was not prepared for this curious, -absorbed interest. By and by she repeated to herself softly, “So silly -as to fall <i>in</i>—<i>love</i>:—with me—would have left the place -altogether.” Then she made a pause, and, putting her hands softly -together, said, with a sigh of satisfaction at having found out one -problem: “Then that was what he meant!”</p> - -<p>“What was what he meant? He told me you took no notice; he thought you -hadn’t understood what he said.”</p> - -<p>“I did not understand it,” said Rita, softly, “I only wondered. It was -about going to England——”</p> - -<p>“Rita, Rita! you would not, for a new lover, a man you scarcely know, a -being quite untried—you would not break my heart and go and risk your -life—your life that is above all things precious to me?”</p> - -<p>Rita scarcely seemed to hear this interpolation—this interruption of -her thoughts.</p> - -<p>“That there would be no danger, he said, and he would take care—he -would take care—that was not much; but I did wonder. I will tell you -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> truth, papa. I had a great anxiety to know what he meant.”</p> - -<p>“Young idiot!” her father said, with hotly-rising wrath, “he meant -nothing—nothing, my love! only a brag that he could do more, and know -better—a boy, an uninstructed fool—than those who have watched over -you all your life.”</p> - -<p>Even this made no impression upon the girl. “It is curious,” she said, -still to herself, “very curious—quite different from—the other way. I -suppose this is the English way? Benedetta always says the English are -half mad. I suppose instead of asking about the <i>dot</i>, and that kind of -thing, you know, papa—I suppose this is the English way?”</p> - -<p>“It is the foolish way,” cried the father. “Come, it is nothing to you, -Rita. You don’t mean to say—no, no, my darling; I know better—you -don’t mean to make me believe that you, so clever as you are, and -knowing so much, could think twice about any notion that came into the -noddle of such an empty-headed young man.”</p> - -<p>“Is he empty-headed?” said Rita, reflectively. “He does not know much, -that is quite true; he is not a bit clever; but I think it is a little -unjust<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> to call him empty-headed. He was always just himself; he never -pretended to anything else. Sometimes he understood—very often he -didn’t; but he never pretended, papa. Don’t you think it is a little -hard upon him?” she said, turning round upon her father suddenly, and -fixing him with her large, serious, impartial eyes. “Don’t you think it -is hard to take advantage of what he has said himself, and turn him out -like this?”</p> - -<p>“I have not turned him out. Rita, this is mere folly. I will not have -you led away by your feelings. If any man were to kill me, I believe you -would say he didn’t mean it, poor fellow, it would be hard upon him to -hang him. Come, child, let us be done with this.”</p> - -<p>“But, papa,” said Rita, “there is no evidence against him but his own -confession. I have often heard you say that one should not take -advantage of that. Kill you—who wants to kill you? There could not be a -more different question. I am not led away by my feelings. I have no -feelings but right and justice. I don’t think you ought to have taken -that advantage of him. It must be very hard upon him, papa, to shut him -out. Think! he will have nowhere else to go to. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> dare say he spends -his evenings in the cafés. He can’t know what to do with himself at -nights.”</p> - -<p>“As if I had anything to do with his entertainment in the evening! I -wish to heaven he had never set foot within my house!”</p> - -<p>“Ah! but that is past praying for. I don’t see why you should wish such -a thing; but still, if you do wish it, it is a pity, for it is too late. -He <i>has</i> set foot within your house, and we have a responsibility about -him. We have a responsibility,” said Rita, very gravely shaking her -head. “He is young, and he is very simple-minded, and he might, as you -are always saying, take a wrong turn; and then whose fault would it be?”</p> - -<p>“Not mine,” cried the persecuted man, “certainly not mine—that I’ll -swear to. Am I the fellow’s keeper? Rita, for heaven’s sake be done with -all that nonsense. If you can talk of nothing more sensible, you had -much better go to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Rita, calmly, going on with her argument, “you are his -guardian in a kind of way, papa. It was you that took him up first. You -did it of your own free will, nobody persuaded you. You settled him -here, and you opened your doors to him, and said, Come on Sunday, come -as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> often as you please. Do you think you are justified in casting him -away now, as if it was of no importance? never thinking where he will go -instead, or if he has anywhere else to go to? Do you think you are -justified? for no other reason than that you think he might perhaps do -or say something you would not like? I do not.”</p> - -<p>“Then you think, I suppose, that I ought to have him back and beg his -pardon, and tell him he is quite free to make love to my daughter if he -likes? Bless my soul! why should I interfere with such a pretty -amusement? That’s what you think. Rita, don’t sit there, my dear, -talking nonsense: say no more about this young fool, but go to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Papa, I am sorry to see you are so deaf to sound argument,” said Rita, -with judicial composure; “you always bring in the personal question, as -if that had anything to do with it. On the face of it, to deprive a -stranger of the benefits you have been heaping upon him, and leave him -in a moment to his own resources, all because you are afraid of a -distant and unlikely thing he thinks he wants to do, is dreadfully -unjustifiable; my dear papa,” said Rita, looking down from the heights -of youthful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> superiority, “I never expected to find you inaccessible to -reason, especially on such an important point as this.”</p> - -<p>“Inaccessible to fiddlesticks,” the Vice-Consul said; but he was -entirely shaken in his conviction of having done what was right and -kind, both to one party and the other. He got up and walked about the -room. He was a man who wanted moral support; he wanted to be approved -of, and to feel that the opinion of those around him went with his. And -especially he had learned to prop himself up by Rita’s opinion. He was -always uneasy when she differed from him. Even in this matter, which -concerned herself, and in which her judgment might justly be doubted, he -was not comfortable. He was unfortunately too accessible to reason, so -that nothing could be more unjust than this reproach. “Go to bed, my -love; go to bed,” he said, faintly. “It is getting very late; another -time we can talk of this.”</p> - -<p>“Then do you think, papa,” said Rita, still magisterial, “that it is -right to postpone a matter which concerns other people’s comfort to -another time?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t worry me to death,” said Mr. Bonamy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> stretching out his hands -with a half-despairing appeal. “I never thought I was going to be led -into such a discussion—don’t worry me to death!”</p> - -<p>But she showed no signs of mercy, and there is no telling what might -have happened to Her Majesty’s humble representative had he not been -called away at this moment to receive a messenger with despatches from -the Consulate-General and important instructions. Mr. Bonamy hurried -away with a sigh of thankfulness; never was culprit suddenly delivered -from the bar more glad of his escape. He knew, indeed, that it was only -for a time: but yet even for a time it was well to get out of her hands. -At least he could collect materials for his defence.</p> - -<p>Rita, for her part, after sitting for some time waiting for her father’s -return, and sharpening up various arguments for his complete -discomfiture, got tired, and made up her mind to take his advice and go -to bed. But she had a great deal too much to think about to have any -desire to go to sleep. When she had sent Benedetta away she sat by her -window in her white dressing-gown, with her hair about her shoulders, a -romantic little figure, and felt a little like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> Juliet. She had never -felt like Juliet before. She had, even with the flippancy of her age, -been disposed to think of Juliet as of a very forward and bold young -woman. People who have been accustomed to hear of marriage as a matter -of convenience, so much <i>dot</i>, so many advantages, and who have even -been negotiated for in this way, are apt to think but poorly of that -ideal impersonation of youthful passion. But now that Romeo had appeared -on the scene, Rita, at the window, thought upon Juliet with a little -secret wonder, and awe, and pleasure. Romeo—well, there is no evidence -that Romeo was clever. He was only one of the gallants of the period, -one of the swash-bucklers who sometimes talk just as badly as their -kind, though often they forget themselves and talk Shakespeare. There -was nothing extraordinary about him till love and the poet got hold of -him, and put divine words into his mouth. Very likely that gay Mercutio -was the cleverest of the two. Sitting thus at her window, Rita all at -once was sensible of a figure on the pavement looking up at the house -from the opposite side of the street. There was nothing but a little -night-light burning on a table in the corner, nothing to betray<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> her -figure where she sat. And nothing could be more common-place and absurd -than that Harry should come there and stare at the windows. He was not -by any means in the habit of doing so; but yet when he was out, taking -his forlorn walk, he would allow himself to take that turn through the -street in which the Consulate was, and fix a wistful eye upon it for a -moment. When Rita saw him she darted back with a movement of fright and -wonder, and mirth and shyness, all in one; and sat out of sight for a -few moments, panting, blushing, with the same overwhelming flush of -sudden warmth which had come over her for the first time when her father -spoke to her. Then, in the dark and the silence, she gave vent to a -little low laugh, at which she was frightened when she heard it, and -became suddenly as solemn and serious as an old picture. Then she -returned shyly to the corner of the window, peeping, though she ought to -have known that it was impossible he could see her. The figure opposite -was in the act of passing on; it gave a long look back as it went slowly -away, lingering as if reluctant to be out of her neighbourhood. Rita -drew back this time with a kind of awe. She knew he would have thought -no more of climbing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> the garden wall, however high it had been—if there -had been a garden wall and a balcony, and she out upon it discoursing to -the moon—than Romeo did. “But there is the difference,” Rita said to -herself; “he may be in love with me, but I am not in love with him. I -would never stand out there and sigh Romeo, Romeo. No,” she went on, -with a little shriek of a laugh, “not Romeo. Oh, Isaac, Isaac, wherefore -art thou Isaac? That is too ridiculous; it is all too ridiculous. I -don’t wonder at what Benedetta says, that the English are half-mad.”</p> - -<p>And then she sat a long time in the dark, and thought, and thought. It -was all very new and very strange. It roused her lively faculties with -the pleasure of a novel sensation. She had taken her proposals of -marriage with sedate contempt, and announced authoritatively to her -father on each occasion that she had no intention of ever marrying, and -that she liked him much better than any other man in the world, an -assurance which the poor Vice-Consul took great comfort in, though it -was not possible that any man in his senses could accept it as a matter -of serious faith. But now Rita could not deny to herself that this -strange new bewildering sensation was a pleasant one. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> former -suitors would no doubt have gladly adopted it had it been thought that -such an easy mode of love-making would have been permitted; but in their -cases it would not have moved the foolish girl. To see somebody standing -silent on the other side of the street, doing nothing to call her -attention, not wishing to be noticed, doing it only for a little comfort -to himself, was entirely different. That was the English way, she -thought with awe. To be able to give love up for the sake of honour, and -yet to have it so much at heart as to be driven to come and look at the -house in which the beloved object lived, standing about alone in a cold -night—Rita’s whole heart was penetrated by the sincerity, the modesty, -the self-restraint, yet self-abandonment, which were English, only -English, nothing else. It was not in the least a cold night: Harry -outside felt it to be warm and genial: but there was a cool little -night-breeze lifting the curtains, and she strove to call it cold to -heighten the effect. This was how the Vice-Consul had mismanaged -matters. He was not a happy man as he read his despatches; but he had no -idea of the mischief which was going on under cover of the night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /><br /> -<small>A LOVER’S ORDEAL.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">R</span>ITA said nothing more to her father on this subject for a day or two, -and the poor man, deceived once more, began to believe that it had made -little impression upon her, and was to be allowed to pass as of no -particular importance. He had even begun to congratulate himself on the -beneficial effects of his system of training, and the knowledge of the -world which her early initiation into life had given her. “Had I brought -Rita up as most girls are brought up,” he said to himself; “had she been -fresh from a convent, for instance, like some of her friends, or shut up -indoors as Italian girls are, her head would have been turned by the -first mention of a lover. But she has seen a great deal,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> though she is -so young. In our position she could not help seeing a great deal. She -knows how to discriminate, and can judge what is what. What a good thing -that I did not follow the advice of all these ladies, but was bold -enough to trust to my girl’s innocence and bring her up my own way!” -Thus artlessly did the Vice-Consul console himself. And his mind was a -great deal easier; for before he was always nervous lest she should -question him about Harry, and afraid of betraying himself, even afraid -of letting Rita perceive that there was something to betray. Now that he -had made a clean breast and got it over, his mind was relieved, and he -felt that he could carry his head as high as usual, and need not be -afraid to look any girl in the face. For the first day he rejoiced with -trembling, but after that had passed began to feel that he had really -secured his footing, and might take comfort that the danger was over. -Poor Vice-Consul! He had but just allowed this sensation of pleasure to -enter his mind when Rita, looking up at him suddenly from a book in -which she had all the air of being completely absorbed, addressed him -suddenly as follows—</p> - -<p>“Papa! I have been thinking over what you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> told me the other day—What -is the matter?” she added, interrupting herself.</p> - -<p>“Nothing, nothing,” said poor Mr. Bonamy, faintly. He had been lying -back in a very comfortable chair, whiffing gently at intervals a mild -cigarette, and giving himself up to the comfort, the ease of being done -with a subject in which he had foreseen trouble. When his daughter began -to speak, a presentiment of danger awoke in him, and he started up in -his chair when she had said these words. “Nothing, nothing,” he -repeated, letting himself drop again, but alas, with what different -feelings; with the languor of a conflict foreseen, in which he knew he -should be worsted. “What have you been thinking about, Rita?”</p> - -<p>“About what you told me the other day. Of course it was not just an -ordinary thing that one could think nothing more about. Poor Mr. Oliver! -I think he has been badly treated. I want you to tell him just to come -as usual. He must be on his guard, you know; but in any case he would be -on his guard after speaking to you. He must not suppose that I know -anything about it.”</p> - -<p>“But, my dear,” said the Vice-Consul, with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> troubled face, “I don’t -think that would do at all; he would think that he had my permission -to—to pay you his addresses, as people used to say?”</p> - -<p>“What are addresses?” said Rita, with much appearance of innocence. “You -must tell him, of course, that there is to be nothing of that kind; but -only just that he is to come as before. I don’t see that it need do him -any harm—I mean any further harm,” said the girl, correcting herself. -She spoke with unusual airiness and carelessness, so lightly indeed that -her indifference had the aspect of being somewhat studied.</p> - -<p>“Him—harm! that was not the question,” the perplexed father said.</p> - -<p>“I hope you don’t mean to infer that it would do <i>me</i> any harm?” said -Rita, turning upon him with a smile of superb disdain. She even laughed -a little at the folly of the idea, opening and shutting a fan which she -held in her hand. “That would be too ridiculous—too ridiculous,” she -said.</p> - -<p>“But, my dear child, you are young and inexperienced, and—”</p> - -<p>“Don’t insult me, please, papa,” she said, fanning herself. If she had -been fifty she could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> not have looked more superior to any such -temptation. “And, on the other hand,” she added, “I don’t see why poor -Mr. Oliver should be punished, positively punished for liking me. It is -not a sin to like me. Of course he must learn to keep it to himself; it -will be a good lesson in self-control—which everybody is the better -for,” said this young oracle, “and especially, as I have always heard, -young men.”</p> - -<p>This wisdom took away the Vice-Consul’s breath. “That is very true:” he -said “but I am not at all sure that this is a safe way of teaching it. I -think, if it is the same to you, Rita—”</p> - -<p>“But it is not the same to me,” she cried, impatiently. “If you will not -set poor Mr. Oliver right and do him justice, I think I will go and pay -that visit my aunt Ersilia always wants me to make her. You said -yourself I must go one day or other. I will go now.”</p> - -<p>Now if there was one thing more than another which Mr. Bonamy was afraid -of, it was this visit to her aunt Ersilia, her mother’s Italian sister, -with which she threatened him from time to time. He said hurriedly, “I -don’t think this is a good time for going further south, Rita. Of -course, if you wish it so much, I will gladly remove the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> embargo on -poor Oliver, who is a very good, honest sort of fellow; but I can’t have -him tormented, poor boy—and you must promise to be very distant with -him, which is the kindest thing you can do.”</p> - -<p>“But not too distant, papa,” said Rita; “for I think it a great deal -better that he should suppose I do not know. Far better. I will behave -to him just as usual. I will withdraw gradually, bit by bit, that he may -not feel too much difference. Indeed, unless he is different to me, I -don’t see why I should be different to him. Of course he will be on his -guard. You see he <i>knows now</i>. Naturally he will be more careful. He -will understand that if you let him come back he is upon his honour. So, -on the whole, I will make very little difference. I think it is far -better that everything should have the look of being just the same as -before.”</p> - -<p>With this Mr. Bonamy was obliged to be satisfied. He had known very well -when the discussion began that Rita’s will, whatever it might be, was -the thing that would be done. He had in his own mind a great many -troubled reflections, considering how he was to do it, so as not to -excite false hopes or vain expectations in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> young man’s mind; but it -was, from the moment when she declared her sovereign will, a foregone -conclusion. He had not resolved the question how it was to be done, up -to the time he went into his office in the morning, and then thought it -best to leave it to chance and the inspiration of the moment. When he -sent for Harry to speak with him he had still but a very faint idea what -to say. The young man came in looking somewhat dull and depressed, as he -did always now, and no longer expectant of anything better, as he had -been at the first. It was a moment of leisure, and the Vice-Consul had -the air of a man with something disagreeable rather than something -pleasant to say. His look was artificial, and the smile which adorned -his face was forced and uncomfortable.</p> - -<p>“Come in, Oliver, come in,” he said, with an air of affected geniality. -Harry thought he was going to receive his dismissal; he did not think -that anything less could give his kind and friendly patron an aspect so -little natural. “Sit down,” said the Vice-Consul, “I have something to -say before business begins this afternoon. Oliver, I have been going -through quite a passage of arms on your account.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“On my account?” said Harry, feeling as if his heart stopped beating; he -thought within himself, that this passage of arms must have been with -some of the authorities of the F. O., who perhaps had been stirred up to -ask what a stranger, without recommendations, was doing there. It seemed -to him that the next thing which would be said must be, “I have no -further occasion for your services,” and braced himself for these words.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be frightened; yes, you look frightened,” said Mr. Bonamy, still -with that false geniality, “but no harm has come of it. You met—my -daughter—the other day.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.” Harry’s heart re-commenced beating, and went so fast that it -almost choked him. “It was an accident, Sir; I did not see Miss Bonamy -till I was close upon her, I could not escape.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she told me. And she asked what had become of you, and you -answered ‘Very well, thank you!’ You will allow that was strange. No -doubt she had been much puzzled by your disappearance before, and she -assailed me directly what was the meaning of it? I had to say all sorts -of things, that you were too busy to come, that you were otherwise -engaged, and I don’t know what; but the short and the long of it is,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> -Oliver, that, if you want to keep her from knowing all about it, you -must begin to come back again. Things cannot go on as they are now -without arousing her suspicions. This is her night, you know; you must -look in for an hour. Of course I don’t want to enter into explanations -with her,” said the Vice-Consul, becoming more at ease now he had made -out his statement, and done it, he thought with some complacence, very -cleverly. “You must really, by way of supporting what I have been -obliged to say, look in to-night.”</p> - -<p>Harry’s heart was making up tremendously now for its momentary pause. He -felt as if it must be audible all over the house. A flush of warmth went -over him. He spoke with little breaks in his voice, so much excited and -disturbed was he.</p> - -<p>“If you—have no objections, Sir. It cannot be but—a favour to me.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a good fellow,” cried the Vice-Consul relieved. “I was afraid -you would tell me it was too painful, and leave me in the lurch.”</p> - -<p>“If I did that, Sir,” said Harry, “I should be a worthless creature -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>indeed, however much it might cost me; but this—this—— If you have -no objections, Sir—you can’t have any doubt that I——”</p> - -<p>Here he stopped, not knowing what to say more.</p> - -<p>“You must understand, Oliver,” said Mr. Bonamy, gravely, “that if I have -no objections it is because I don’t want to enter into explanations with -Rita; and then I have missed you, I would never deny that. But you must -not suppose, because of this, that I mean you, you know, to depart from -our—bargain, or to do anything to change the position. In short, I -don’t intend, Oliver, that you should take advantage of the change -to—in short, to——”</p> - -<p>This was not very explanatory, but Harry hastened to reply as if it had -been the clearest statement in the world.</p> - -<p>“You may be sure I will take no advantage of the change,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Well, that is just what I expected from you,” said the Vice-Consul, -falling into his natural tone; “but, my dear fellow,” he added, with a -little alarm, “I must be sure that you can depend upon yourself. You -told me you were afraid you would betray your feelings if you continued -to come; you told me even that you had done so, or almost done so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Sir,” cried Harry, “that was when I found myself out! I know -exactly all about it now, and I am on my guard.”</p> - -<p>“Bless me,” said the Vice-Consul, “that is exactly what——” here he -stopped short with the guiltiest look. He was just about to say—what -Rita said.</p> - -<p>“You need not have any fear on my account,” said Harry: and then he -paused a little, and added with feeling, “and I am proud that you have -confidence in me. I will do nothing to shake it; you may be sure of -that. I should be a poor creature indeed if my heart did not respond to -such trust.”</p> - -<p>This was a very fine speech for Harry. He was carried altogether beyond -himself by the emergency. These last lonely evenings had been wonderful -teachers for him. He had learned to read, he had learned to understand. -He had even learned many things more than reading and understanding in -these days of solitude. The thought of going back to her, to that little -world in which she reigned, was delightful to him, but he wondered what -change there would be in it to balance the strange change in his own -breast. It seemed to him that he was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> new man, with deeper feelings -and an expanded mind. And she? Would she just be the same, and all the -things and people round her? Harry did not want her to be the least -different. He thought she was perfect, the most wonderful of all beings; -but he felt himself so much altered that he was excited by the thought -that she might be changed too. He went away from his audience not -knowing whether he walked on solid earth or air. Certainly he would not -take advantage; unquestionably he would be upright and honest, and bind -himself as with ropes rather than betray his kind friend’s confidence; -but with all this he was very much excited, and a glow of warmth and -hopefulness began to circulate in his veins. The new concession meant no -change in the circumstances; this the Vice-Consul had been anxious to -impress upon him; and he was equally anxious to assent, to assure Rita’s -father on the other hand that he expected nothing, scarcely desired -anything except this trust in him. But, nevertheless, it would be -impossible to deny that a something of hope, a trembling yet happy -expectation, had come into his heart.</p> - -<p>How carefully he dressed himself that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> night! Never in all his life had -he made so careful a toilette before. And Paolo, having heard what had -happened (which Harry, reticent as he was, could not keep from him), was -excited too, and came and sat by him while he dressed, and wanted to -help him, as if they had been two girls. Paolo ran out and bought him a -bouquet for his button-hole. He brought in a fresh bottle of -eau-de-Cologne. He was very anxious to lend him something to wear—his -studs, which were little cameos set in gold, or a ring, with a doubtful -gem in it, of which he was very proud, thinking it a genuine antique. -“It is not brilliant like a diamond,” said Paolo, “but it is art, which -is more precious, and pleases much to the Signorina. Take it, amico mio, -you have no ring, which is an absence that is felt; and the studs, that -will make your appearance so much more perfect—what you call finished.” -Harry rejected these aids to the effectiveness of his dress, but he took -great pains about his tie, and rebrushed his coat himself, and gave -particular attention to the arrangement of his hair. He said to himself, -as he walked along in the summer dusk, that all this was very foolish, -that he was not on his promotion, when it might have been wise to make -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> best of all his advantages, that he was going only because he was -nobody, because the Vice-Consul was not afraid of him, and thought it -wiser to run the risk of him than to disturb Rita’s mind about any such -petty suitor. It was very much like giving him the crumbs from the -table, but he was willing to accept these, or anything. He went into the -lighted room with his heart beating. Several of the ladies who were -<i>habituées</i> exclaimed on his entrance, and made haste to tell him that -they had thought he was gone altogether, and to ask where he had been. -Rita took no part in these questions, but she gave him her left hand as -a sign of friendship, and smiled and nodded to him without stopping her -conversation with somebody else. Indeed, she treated him as if there had -been no break in their intercourse, as though they had met yesterday and -were to meet again to-morrow. This pleased Harry, and yet it wrung his -heart. Was he of so little importance to her that she had not even -noticed his absence? But that could not be. He began to wonder whether -it was perhaps a good sign. She <i>had</i> noticed his absence, speaking to -her father about it. Was it perhaps—? His heart began to beat again as -at first. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> Rita took very little notice of him all the evening. She -was perfectly sweet and smiling, and when she did address him did it -with all her old friendliness; but Harry could not persuade himself that -she had remarked him and his careful tie, and his well-brushed curls at -all.</p> - -<p>After that there ensued a time of mingled torture and happiness, when -Rita played with the young man as a cat plays with a mouse. She was more -interested in him than she had ever been in any young man before. He was -a study to her of the most attractive kind. A young man who was in -love—not a young man who was wanting to marry, a species of which she -had seen several specimens—but one who was actually, really, warmly in -love—and with herself. She wanted to see how such a person behaved. It -was as good as a play to her. She would laugh to herself secretly, -thinking of it, so much amused was she; and it seemed to her almost a -duty to try him in every way, to see how far this love would carry him, -and how long he would manage to keep it under. It did not occur to Rita -that this was a somewhat cruel process, or that Harry was pledged in -honour to her father not to betray himself. The cat most likely has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> no -idea of cruelty in her play with the mouse. Sometimes Rita would take no -notice of him at all, neglecting all the wistful attention which poor -Harry felt it was within his bond to bestow so long as he looked for -nothing in return. For a whole evening she would not so much as look at -him; then would suddenly turn with her most cordial smile, with a few -words more sweet than he thought she had ever bestowed upon him before. -Sometimes she would call him to her side, and ply him with seductions -which poor Harry did not know how to resist; sometimes she would devote -all her efforts to the task of making him betray himself, tempting him -with all sorts of opportunities. But Harry stood fast. He had given his -promise, and nothing would make him break it. He wavered like a tree in -the wind, but he never yielded. Sometimes she made him think that she -was ready to listen to anything he might say, and another time would -take the first opportunity of showing him that he was nothing to her. It -was hard upon the mouse; yet we doubt whether he would have exchanged -this agitated existence for the most happy calm. He went to the -Consulate with a continued expectation, with his heart always beating -loudly, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> knowing what he was to look for; but a more calm level of -kindness would not have given him those variations of feeling, that -dramatic interest in his life; so that, perhaps, there was not much harm -done, the tortured liking the play as much as the torturer. As for Rita -she was very much interested too; the pursuit amused her—it was a new -sensation. She wanted above all things to overcome his resolution, and -make him betray himself. But here her efforts were vain against the rock -of Harry’s invincibility. He would not, whatever she might do, break his -promise. He kept a watch upon himself which was not to be overcome.</p> - -<p>The Vice-Consul did not know what to make of the business altogether. It -gave him a great deal of thought. He watched the young man with a -jealous eye: but Harry met every scrutiny with an unflinching front. And -Mr. Bonamy did what he could to watch his daughter, but that was not so -easy. She was amusing herself, but whether she was going too far in her -trial of Harry’s constancy he could not tell. She bewildered her father, -which was not difficult; but what was more wonderful, after a while, -this venturous person began to bewilder herself. She thought she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> was -tired of Harry, who could not be got to swerve out of the right way. She -began to think that it was all a fiction, or that this love after the -English fashion was far too self-commanded and restrained for a half -Italian girl. She had thought at first that it would be quite easy and -extremely amusing to make him betray himself. And she had resolved in -such a case that his downfall should do him no harm; she would not -betray him; she would keep his secret. But she had not supposed that he -would stand out, that he would be able to resist her: and at length she -got confused about her own notions, and about his conduct and everything -around her, and knew no longer what to think.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /><br /> -<small>A CRISIS.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T was like a play the intercourse which went on between these two; the -perpetual aggressions of the girl and defences of the young man, the -troubled spectatorship of the father, who saw that slave of his word -resisting, fighting always, more or less feebly, but yet resisting all -the <i>agaceries</i>, all the temptations, which a spirit of mischief could -throw in his way. Sometimes the sight was laughable, sometimes it was -almost tragic, to the looker on; and he was much disturbed at the same -time on his own account, not knowing what Rita meant by it all. “Take -care what you are doing,” he would say to her, with mingled pity and -alarm—pity for the young man, alarm for himself and her. “What am<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> I -doing, papa?” Rita would ask, with the greatest innocence. “That is -exactly what I can’t tell,” poor Mr. Bonamy said. But his warnings never -came to more than this. And nothing in all her life had so amused Rita -as her torture of this unfortunate young man. One day they happened to -be alone for a little while, Mr. Bonamy having been called away. It was -on a Sunday evening, after dinner, a day when the Bonamys, following the -old-fashioned English rule, were always alone. Harry had avoided -opportunities of being alone with Rita as much as lovers generally -scheme for that privilege, but to-day there was no help for it. She was -seated at the open window in her usual dress of vapoury white; the -summer was advancing, and it would soon be time for the removal of the -household to the country, where they went every year. Mr. Bonamy had -been called away, quite unexpectedly, to his own dreadful vexation and -the terror of Harry, but to Rita’s secret delight. The night-air puffed -the white curtains over her head and about her white, half-visible -figure. The window looked out upon the garden, and there was a little -moisture of the sea in the air. Harry was standing at the other side of -the window,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> half concealed by the floating veil of the curtain. Rita -was half buried in a great chair. A shaded lamp stood on a table in the -other part of the room, but that was all, not light enough to see each -other by. There had been a somewhat long silence, and Harry was trying -hard to break loose from this enchantment and go away. But his heart was -faint with the sweetness of it, poor fellow! and he could not get free, -especially now that they were alone. If it could have been helped, he -would not have stayed; but he had not been able to help it, and it was -sweet. He was snatching a fearful joy, not saying anything, scarcely -daring to breathe. Then into the soft silence came her voice.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Oliver, they tell me summer nights in England are so much sweeter -than here. What are those long twilights? I have read about them, but I -don’t understand it. Tell me.” He could make out that she leaned forward -in her chair, putting her hands together, which was a way she had.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” said Harry, catching his breath, “that anything can be -sweeter than the evenings here.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but there is a difference; tell me. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> know that I am never to go -to England,” said Rita, plaintively; “though I remember you said you -would not be afraid to take me. What made you say that, Mr. Oliver? -perhaps you forget that you ever did.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; I don’t forget.”</p> - -<p>“You never would enter into any particulars; but I am glad at least that -you don’t forget. Now papa is away, we may talk of it. It always hurts -papa when I speak of England. So tell me—tell me quick—how was it that -you thought you could make it safe? Ah, how I wish you could!” she said, -clasping her hands.</p> - -<p>Harry said never a word. His heart was thumping so against his breast -that he thought every moment it would burst forth from that uneasy -house. Now it got into his throat, and seemed to choke him; he could not -speak.</p> - -<p>“You don’t say anything,” said Rita, with again a little tone of -complaint. “Do you think that is kind, or fair? You rouse my -expectations, and then you never say another word. I have thought of it -all this time, and always wondered if you would ever tell me. How could -Mr. Oliver manage to take me to England without danger? that is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> what I -have always been saying to myself. What, Mr. Oliver! won’t you say a -word?”</p> - -<p>Here there burst a cry from Harry’s breast. “Don’t torture me,” he said; -then collecting all his strength, “It was my presumption. I thought only -that to take—the most precious care of you——”</p> - -<p>His voice shook, and at last his little torturer felt that she had got -almost to the end of his powers.</p> - -<p>“That is a very pretty way of saying it, Mr. Oliver; precious care; it -is not slang, is it? I am sure you would be kind—very, very kind.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, <i>kind</i>!” cried poor Harry, grasping unconsciously the white -curtains that kept blowing between him and her, in his strong, hot -hands.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you like the word? I think it is such a nice word. There is -nothing like it in Italian, and you can apply it so widely. You can be -kind to a horse or a dog; and then to children, and sick people and poor -people; and then—to everybody—me. You have always been, ever since I -knew you, very kind to me.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say so—don’t say so—not that word,” Harry cried.</p> - -<p>“But there is no other word half so good.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> Other words express other -feelings; kind means, just kind. There is nothing else expresses it. -English is a wonderfully fine language. It is so strong and so -trustworthy. You feel as if you could believe it, every word. Mr. -Oliver,” said Rita, in her little, soft, insinuating voice, “did you -really, really believe that—that I might go to England, if—someone -were to take care of me, such care as you call precious; but, then, who -would do that? not papa, for he is so frightened. No one I know.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Bonamy, I must say good night,” said Harry, very shortly, taking -himself out of the floating curtain, almost tearing it down in his -agitation.</p> - -<p>“Good night! before papa comes back? Oh, but that would be <i>un</i>kind. -Don’t. Why should you run off in such a hurry in the very middle of our -talk?”</p> - -<p>“Because,” he said, with the crushed curtain like a wisp in his hands, -“I can’t stay—I mustn’t stay. Forgive me, and, if you will, excuse me: -and—good night!”</p> - -<p>He was rushing away, when she put out her hand. He saw that, though -there was so little light. He could not refuse to shake hands with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> her; -and instead of leaving the pressure to him, she took hold of his hand -for a second, lightly but firmly detaining him. “Mr. Oliver,” she said, -with that little plaintive tone, “you should not run away.”</p> - -<p>Harry was hoarse with agitation and distress. That soft, light touch of -detention made him wild. “I must fly,” he said, “fly! Do you think I -want to go? I must fly, and come no more.”</p> - -<p>And he turned and disappeared like an arrow, as swift, but not so -noiselessly, stumbling through the dark room. She lay back in her chair -and listened to him all the way rushing down the stairs, shutting the -great door with a clang. Then his steps were audible along the street -hurrying away. The very foot, Rita thought, spoke English among the -other footsteps. She seemed to hear them ever so far off, hurrying, -flying. She was a spoiled child. She had not succeeded in her wicked -attempt, and some other feeling mingled with the childish disappointment -which provoked and mortified her. When the Vice-Consul came back, not -without a great deal of anxiety in his mind, he found her still sitting -there, crying as if her perverse heart would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> break. It gave him a -mingled sense of fright and relief to see that there was no one else in -the room; but when he found that Rita was crying, his foolish, fatherly -heart was melted altogether. He hurried across the half-lighted room. -“What is the matter, my darling, what is the matter? Where is Oliver? Is -it his fault?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Papa,” cried Rita, with sobs, “do not speak to me of Mr. Oliver; he is -a clod, he is a stone. It is not a bit true what you told me of him. He -must have been laughing at you—or perhaps at me. It is not a bit true.”</p> - -<p>“What is it that is not true? My pet, this young fellow has been saying -something to vex you? Bless my heart! he shall go to-morrow if he has -broken his word and said anything to annoy you.”</p> - -<p>And the Vice-Consul, very wroth, drew a chair to the side of Rita’s, and -put his arm round her, soothing her with soft words and caresses, and -launching thunderbolts of anger at the supposed culprit. Rita cried -softly for some time on her father’s shoulder. Then she interrupted him, -putting her hand upon his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Papa, don’t; you don’t know. What pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>vokes me is different. It is not -because he said anything. Listen,” said Rita, putting her lips to his -ear; “I <i>know</i> it is not true what he said to you. It can’t be true, -because I have tried him and tried him, and he <i>won’t</i> say anything. He -has no feeling at all in him, and it cannot be true.”</p> - -<p>“Rita! Rita! what are you saying?” Mr. Bonamy cried.</p> - -<p>The horror in his voice brought her to herself. She sat up suddenly, -drying her eyes. “Well, papa, it is your fault. You gave me a puzzle to -make out. I thought it would be fun; but it is not fun. As for Mr. -Oliver, he is just an excellent, trustworthy Englishman. You need not -fear that he will ever be carried away. As for feeling, I don’t think he -knows what it is. He is English—English all over.” She clapped her -hands together to give emphasis to her sentence, like a true Italian, -which by turns she was.</p> - -<p>“Yes, he is English—very English. I thought you liked everything that -was English,” the surprised father said.</p> - -<p>“And so I do; but what does it matter if you will never, never let me go -to England? Take me to England, papa!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“My darling! when you know what my feeling is on that subject—anything -but that, Rita; ask me anything but that.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” she replied, “Mr. Oliver said there would be no difficulty about -it; he said he would take the most precious care of me. Is that slang, -papa?”</p> - -<p>“Slang? bless my heart, it sounds like something quite different to me,” -cried the Vice-Consul, frowning. But Rita once more put her hand upon -his mouth.</p> - -<p>“You know better than I do,” she said, demurely. “I could not be sure -which it was; but you may make yourself quite comfortable, papa, for Mr. -Oliver is very conscientious, and never said a word. I begin,” she said -pensively, “to understand English now.”</p> - -<p>“Rita, I think you must be taking leave of your senses. You begin to -understand English! your own language!”</p> - -<p>She nodded her head a great many times in reply.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I begin to understand it,” she said. And this was all he could get -out of her. She began presently to talk upon other subjects, and kept -him amused all the rest of the evening, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> Harry was not mentioned -again between them.</p> - -<p>But Harry himself, poor fellow, went home like the wind, or rather like -a straw blown before the wind; hastening, without any apparent movement -of his own, to the bare rooms which were his only refuge. He arrived -there panting like a man pursued, and shut his door as if it were a -fence between him and his pursuers. He could not have explained to -himself why he did this, for Rita, though she had certainly assailed -him, had not come after him through the streets, as by his appearance -one might have thought she had done, forcing him to his best speed. But -when he sat down and thought it all over, though Harry was excited to -the highest degree, it could scarcely be said of him that he was -unhappy. He was breathless with the excitement of his escape. He said to -himself that he must not go again; that he would not run such risks -again, that another time he must betray himself; but all the time, -underneath everything, he had the consciousness that his very flight had -told his story as effectually as words could have done it, and that she -could not now be at any loss to know what was the moving spring of all -his recent life. He felt that she had suspected<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> him all these days. He -knew that she had meant to surprise his secret somehow, whether in -simple love of mischief and curiosity, or whether with some other -motive, who could tell? but certainly this was what she had been doing: -and there dawned upon him a light of something which was not exactly -hope, but which yet warmed and brightened his horizon, and made the -whole world somehow a better, a less heavy and tedious place. He did not -say even to himself that anything definite was in his hope; what he said -was that he could not go back, that he would run no more risks, that, -whatever might be said to him on the subject, his policy was to keep -away. But this had no such tragic meaning to him as it had on the -previous occasion, when his life had been cut off in half, and his -heart, he thought, rent in twain. If he was ever made to go back -again—a thought which made Harry’s heart jump, but which he did not -feel, as before, was impossible—then it would not be to hold his -tongue. And whatever happened there was one thing which he could not be -doubtful about. He had saved his honour, hard as had been the trial, and -yet she <i>knew</i>. She could not, he was sure, either mistake him or ignore -him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> any longer. Reject him, yes; allow him to languish far from her, -which would be the kindest thing, unless—— but certainly now she knew.</p> - -<p>And then a week or more elapsed. After the first twenty-four hours Harry -began to have heats and chills, wondering if he would be forbidden to go -again. He did not intend to go, but yet to be sent away is different; -and he awaited a summons to the Vice-Consul with feelings of alarm. But -though he was constantly summoned to the Vice-Consul’s presence, he -heard nothing upon this all-interesting subject. Mr. Bonamy looked -coldly upon him for the first day, but said nothing save about business. -And afterwards Harry went on just as before. Rita’s “night” came round, -but Harry did not go. He dressed himself as if he were going, and got -rid of Paolo, who had been greatly disappointed by the total absence of -confidence in him which his friend showed. Naturally, after his -exertions on Harry’s behalf, the offer of the ring and the studs, the -purchase of the flower and the eau-de-cologne, Paolo had felt that he -had a right to hear all that had taken place, and how the lady had been -won, which he did not think would be a difficult matter. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> idea that -his friend could be called back without the lady being won, did not -occur to his swift Italian mind. And after that critical moment when he -linked his arm in Harry’s, and led him eagerly off to the quietest -promenade he could think of, to hear all about it, Paolo had treated -Harry’s indignant denial that there was anything to tell with the -contempt it deserved. “Nothing?” he had said, with an astonishment -almost beyond speech. “Nothing? But that means that you do not wish to -tell me—that you will not give your confidence to me.” When Harry -disclaimed this, Paolo had only shook his head. “I see that you have not -trust in me,” he said, and he had retired in his turn for a few days -from his friend’s society, and a little coolness and momentary -estrangement had ensued.</p> - -<p>But some time had elapsed since then, and one of those reconciliations -of which Harry was afraid had followed, and Paolo’s interest was warmer -than ever. He watched his friend’s looks and noted every visit he paid, -so that it required nothing less than the effort of dressing and setting -out for the Vice-Consul’s to shake himself free from Paolo’s society and -remarks. Harry went to the very street, to the opposite side, to watch -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> windows, and to get a glimpse if he could of the little white -figure, which was the central point in the world to him. But long before -the usual hour the party broke up, and Harry was surprised by a sudden -outpouring of groups of people in evening dresses—ladies with scarfs -thrown over their heads, and satin slippers, not adapted for the rough -pavement. Some of these groups, departing guests, perceived him, before -he was aware. “Oh! are you going to the Bonamys?” said a lady; “don’t -go; the Vice-Consul has been taken ill; he has had a fit or something. -You may see how early we are coming away.” The whole street was soon -full of a babble of voices, all talking of this. The Vice-Consul had -been suddenly taken ill; he had fainted in the midst of the assembly, -and the doctor had been sent for in haste. When Harry looked up at the -windows they were all deserted—the lights still burning, the white -curtains faintly swaying about, but the rooms entirely empty. In a -moment all had become miserable and neglected. Life had ebbed out of the -room, and left everything cold and silent. He felt with a chill at his -heart as if death had come in instead to fill up the vacant place; he -went to the door to inquire about his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> kind patron, his trustful master, -his fatherly friend, with a heart out of which all the previous thoughts -had departed for the moment. He thought of Rita, indeed, with instant -anxiety; but yet her father was foremost in his mind. “Very bad, sir,” -the servant said, who was an Englishman, “very bad,” holding the door -wide open as he said so; and Harry went in in his evening clothes, -looking as if he had meant to go to the party. He was a little scared -afterwards to think that Rita never could know that he did not mean to -come to the party. He went upstairs into the empty drawing-room; there -were a few signs of hasty disturbance about it, evidences of the sudden -interruption; a card-table set out with all the cards as they had been -dealt round it; groups of chairs standing together, and a tray of ices -on a side-table. Such a forsaken room always raises an infinite crowd of -suggestions. It is such a lesson upon the dangers and changes of life as -no sermon can read. Harry stood in the midst of it, feeling as if he had -seen the writing on the wall which startled the ancient king in the -midst of his revel. It had been an innocent revel—nothing in it to -offend earth or heaven; but the touch of a sudden calamity makes even -the most innocent pleasure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>-making seem vain. He stood there feeling as -if on the edge of a tomb, hearing in the distance muffled yet hasty -steps running to and fro, and all the excitement of a sudden illness. -And he had plenty of time to indulge these thoughts, for nobody came -near the room for, he thought, hours; though, of course, this was a -mistaken estimate of the time that really passed. At last Harry heard -measured steps and voices coming downstairs, and hurrying to the door -found the English doctor in company with one of the ladies of the -English community who had known Rita all her life. They told him that -the Vice-Consul’s attack was a very serious one, that he was still -unconscious, and that no one as yet could say how it would turn. “I have -told him for some time he ought to go away. He was struggling foolishly, -when he ought to have given in as so many people do.” “And poor little -Rita, what is to become of her?” the lady said.</p> - -<p>Harry stood with his heart in his mouth, ready for any service. Alas! -what can a young man do in such a case? An old woman is of more use. He -was sent off, however, to fetch a nurse, and to get various articles -that were necessary, and this gave him occupation. He was about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> -house all the night, hearing with faint pleasure that Rita would not -leave her father’s bedside, and glad to share her vigil. He would have -liked to be there too to help, not caring what he did. The Vice-Consul -was very ill for many days, during which time Harry threw himself into -the business of the office, and worked like a slave. He thought neither -of reward nor of the manner in which his behaviour was being -contemplated by the little community around, all as much interested as -the population of a village, though they formed an important part of a -large and busy town. He thought nothing of all this; his new life -absorbed him so that he had no faculty or thought that was free for -anything else. He did not seem to require either rest or regular meals, -but took up Mr. Bonamy’s work during the day, and ran about on any -errand of the sick-room all the night.</p> - -<p>And at last the patient began to get better. The seizure had been a very -bad one, but he mended, and was at last able to be removed. He was too -confused even then to know what was being done for him, or to realise -the state into which his work must have got but for the strenuous and -anxious deputyship of his clerk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> He was taken away even without -knowing, without being able to say a word to Harry. But Rita, who had so -tortured him, who even in the midst of her watch had heard without -knowing it how Harry had taken her father’s place, and how he had made -himself the servant of the house, did not leave him without a token of -her gratitude. One day, while he was sitting absorbed in business, but -not able to keep himself from thinking now and then wistfully whether he -should see either of them before they went away, there came a soft -little knock at the door of communication by which the Vice-Consul had -introduced him first into his house. Harry was at Mr. Bonamy’s own -table, taking his place, and feeling himself already so much at home in -the work that the appeals which he had dreaded at first no longer -affected him. But when he heard this knock his whole frame quivered. He -did not know what to expect. He got up trembling from his chair, and -opened the door. In the passage stood Rita, very worn and pale, with -dark lines round the eyes that seemed to fill up all her face. She had -scarcely left her father’s bedside, he had heard, watching over him -night and day. Her slight little figure, always so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> slim and girlish, -seemed to have shrunk to nothing. There was not a trace of colour in her -face. “Miss Bonamy!” he said, with a sharp tone of surprise, though he -was not surprised; the moment he had heard the knock he had been aware -that Rita, and no other, must have made that appeal. The touch on the -door had conveyed a plaintive sound to him like her voice. She smiled, -but did not say anything. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears, and the -soft lines of her mouth quivered. She came into the office, where he -stood gazing at her, and held out to him both her hands, smiling up in -his face like a child. “I have come to thank you,” she said, at last, -the two big tears dropping like drops of rain in a thunder shower, “for -all your—kindness.” She paused a little before that last word, and -through the tears, through the angelical, pathetic smile, which wrung -poor Harry’s heart, there came something that was like a ghost of -mischief. She remembered their last conversation, though so much had -happened since, and could not refrain, though her heart was moved to its -depths, from throwing this ghost of a malicious shaft at him. Somehow -the effect upon Harry was of a different kind from before. Perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> he -felt that he had now a standing-ground which no one could undervalue or -take from him. At all events he kept her hands in his, and looked at her -with a gaze under which her eyes swerved. “It was not kindness,” he -said.</p> - -<p>Rita drew back a step, though her hands were held fast. Her eyes -drooped, she could not meet his, though Harry’s eyes were insignificant -English eyes in comparison with those great dreamy lights that shone out -of her little pale face. Then she gave one sudden glance at him, -wavering and trembling. “I know it was not,” said Rita, with a great -effort to steady her voice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /><br /> -<small>THE VICE-CONSUL’S RESOLUTION.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Bonamys had a little country-house near the sea, one of those grey -houses, with its vineyard and its fields, which are so common in Italy, -so homely, having so little of the picturesque grace which is suggested -by everything Italian to our minds. The rooms were large and sparely -furnished, one of them, the only pleasant one, opening upon a terrace -which overlooked the sea. Here the Vice-Consul was brought, and laid -upon a couch in the long warm days, after the sun had gone off the -house, to breathe in the pleasant saltness, and refresh himself with -that profound Mediterranean blue which is like nothing else. At first he -was able for no mental, and not much physical, effort,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> but by degrees -life came back to him; and with the earliest gleams of revival came the -recollection of all that had dropped out of his hands, his work, the -office, all that had depended upon him. When this first crisis came, -which had been much dreaded by the doctors, Rita had to meet it alone. -It came in a moment, after a day of listless enjoyment. There had been -some cool breezes, and a little breath of more vigorous life had got -into his relaxed and feeble frame. He had fallen asleep in the -afternoon, his daughter sitting by him. All was tranquil round about, as -became the surroundings of a convalescent, the air breathing softly, the -violent sun, which is in Italy an enemy of the feeble, happily gone out -of sight, the sea sounding softly upon the rocks, the cicala shrill in -the trees. It was the only sharp note in all that quiet, but Rita, for -one, no more knew of the existence of a country landscape without the -shrill tones of the cicala, than an English girl could realise one -without the birds. There were no great trees about, nothing but those -which were useful according to the frugal custom of wealthy Tuscany, -where everything is expected to bear fruit. The lattice-work overhead -was partly covered with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> vine, which made a green roof over one part -of it; but the sick man wanted all the air he could get, so he was not -below the pergola, but in the open part, the soft breeze blowing freely -about him. He lay with his fine head turned towards the sea, a beard, -the growth of his illness, softening the gauntness of the lower part of -his face, sleeping with that utter <i>abandon</i> of weakness which seems to -restore something of the charm of childhood to the sick. Rita sat by, -with a book in her hands which she was not reading. It would be hard to -tell what she was doing; not thinking either;—scenes in the past, -scenes in the future, were gliding through her dreamy mind. Which was -most real she could not tell. She was standing on the edge of fate, not -knowing what a day or a moment might bring forth. All the world had -paused with her in that suspense which was sweet. She did not want to be -done with it or to shorten it, or to make anything advance a step -faster; indeed she did not know what it was that was going to come. But -<i>it</i> would not end there, she said sometimes to herself; it was -impossible that it could end there; one thing or another must come of -it. But what it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> was she wanted to come of it, Rita, even to herself, -would not venture to say.</p> - -<p>When all at once, everything being so quiet, the Vice-Consul suddenly -woke up. He opened his eyes with more energy than usual, and made a -little movement to rise, with an impulse of active life, such as he had -not shown before.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you are there, my pet,” he said. “I was dreaming that we were at -home; that there had been despatches. I fear I have been sadly idle. How -long have I been ill? It is too early for us to be here.”</p> - -<p>“No, papa,” said Rita, alarmed. “Oh, not at all too early—at this time -we are always here.”</p> - -<p>He raised himself on his arm, and a startled look came upon his face.</p> - -<p>“How long have I been ill?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Never mind, papa—a—good while. You are not to think of that; but to -get better, and not to trouble yourself.”</p> - -<p>“That is nonsense, my dear; there is the office that must be thought of; -if you knew the arrears that accumulate even in a few days. I seem to -have lost count of time; oddly enough. I can’t remember anything. How -many—days is it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>His eyes opened wide, his under lip quivered a little, and a flush of -weakness and excitement came upon his cheek. Rita threw down her book -and came hastily to his side, kneeling down by the sofa.</p> - -<p>“Papa! you must not be anxious; you must not ask any questions yet. This -I can tell you, there are no arrears. Mr. Oliver has got the charge of -everything, and he is doing it all so well, so well, Mr. Henderson told -me. He said, ‘If it was not so heart-breaking to miss his dear face,’ -and here Rita gave her father a sudden kiss to conceal, and at the same -time to express, her own agitation, ‘one could scarcely see the -difference. Mr. Oliver has behaved like—nobody ever behaved so well.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Bless my soul!” said Mr. Bonamy, putting up his hand to stroke his -daughter’s face, “here is enthusiasm! I did not know you thought so much -of Oliver.” Then it suddenly occurred to him to look at that hand. He -held it up and contemplated it, at first with amusement, afterwards with -a little alarm. “Here is a poor old claw,” he said, “that looks like—— -why, Rita, it looks like a very bad bout; it looks like a—long illness. -Good heavens! am I deceiving myself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> How long have I been ill?” this he -said in a very peremptory tone.</p> - -<p>“Papa,” Rita said, putting her arms around him, “Mr. Oliver has managed -everything, there is nothing to trouble yourself about. Mr. Henderson -said so, and so did the man from Florence—that man, I forget his name.”</p> - -<p>A look of anguish came upon Mr. Bonamy’s face. To come under the -reproof, or subject himself to the interference of the Consul-General at -Florence, had always been the terror of his official life. He had kept -the danger at bay hitherto, acting with great independence, and being -permitted to do so in an astonishing way; but he had known, or thought -he knew, that they were ready to pounce upon him at the first -opportunity. The idea of a man from Florence was bitter to him beyond -conception. A dark colour came over his face, a sort of purple hue, -which made Rita wild with terror.</p> - -<p>“What—what—what?” he cried, stammering. Rita thought he was going to -have another fit; she called out for Benedetta, Benedetta! and with -anxious hands, caressing, yet half forcing him back upon his pillows, -began to fan him with a great fan which lay on his sofa. He allowed her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> -to lay him down, and perhaps the sight of her anxiety moved him to exert -all his powers of self-control. He subdued the rising confusion of -passionate mortification within him; in which effort he was helped by -his weakness, which made any great convulsion of feeling impossible. -By-and-bye he looked up at her with a half-smile. Benedetta had come at -her call, and was bringing water and vinegar, and bandages of linen to -put on his head. He waved all these appliances away with his hand.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be afraid, I am not going to be—worse,” he said feebly. “I may -be bad enough, but not worse. When did the man from Florence come? Tell -me everything now.”</p> - -<p>Then Rita, hesitating and faltering, told him the story of his illness, -and all the long history burst confusedly upon his brain. He had thought -he had been a few days, perhaps a week ill, and he had been six weeks. -He had been preparing himself for a great deal to do when he should get -well, and he found himself replaced, put aside. There were points in the -story which consoled him. It was no man from Florence who had been doing -his work—that was a wonderful comfort—but his own friend, the young -fellow whom he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> taken up and been kind to, who was the creature of -his bounty. The Consul-General had not found a word to say; he had -approved, and sanctioned, and authorised everything, and the character -of Mr. Bonamy’s work had been kept up. He lay still and kept himself -quiet, and listened to every word. Benedetta, who did not understand the -English, stood by with all her appliances, her cold compresses, her -bandages, the soft white folds of linen in which his hot forehead was to -be bound. But the patient eluded her. He kept himself quiet in spite of -all temptations.</p> - -<p>“You can send her away, Rita,” he said. “What are you frightened for? I -must have known sooner or later. It is far better that I should know. I -have been surrounded by friends, everybody has been good to me; and if -you have no objection, my darling, I should like to see Oliver here.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said Rita, “why you should think I could have any -objection to—anything you wished, papa.”</p> - -<p>There was almost a glow of amusement in the Consul’s eyes. “My dear, you -are very dutiful,” he said. And then the time came when he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> to be -carried back again in his couch indoors before the hour of sunset, which -is feared throughout Italy, and to have his invalid meal brought to him. -The evening was marked by a great event, for that night the Vice-Consul -walked to bed, which was a thing which never had happened before. And -from this time Mr. Bonamy began to accustom himself to all that had -happened, and when the doctor came he extracted from him the full -history of his illness, which interested him very greatly, and gave him -something to think about. It was not unnatural that he should be -startled. “It is a thing that is sure to recur again?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Well, we do not say that anything is sure to recur again. We say that, -given the same disposition, the same symptoms might reappear.”</p> - -<p>“And the third time kills?” the Vice-Consul said.</p> - -<p>“My dear Bonamy, that again is not a thing we say. Every repetition of -course weakens the patient,” said the judicious doctor.</p> - -<p>The sick man laughed, but when he was alone his countenance was very -grave. He lay and reflected upon everything, and thought how<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> lonely his -child would be when he was taken from her. She had some relations, but -his anxiety to keep her from going to England had made him negligent of -his own family at home; and he had something to leave her; he had not -left his child altogether without provision. But what a change it would -be to Rita, from the house where she was queen, where everybody -worshipped and served her, where everything she said was reckoned wiser, -and everything she did more wonderful, than any other sayings or doings, -to be a semi-dependant in the house of her Aunt Ersilia, or some other -of the Italian kindred, with their different ways! This thought filled -Mr. Bonamy’s mind as he lay in the long unoccupied hours of his -convalescence with his face turned to the blue Italian sea. Two days -after he made a request to his child. “Will you write a note to Oliver,” -he said, “and ask him to come and see me? But not if you have any -objection.” He watched her intently, and he saw a quick, faint colour -flash over her face.</p> - -<p>“Why should I have any objection? I told you I had not any, papa; and if -I had what would it matter?” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It would matter a great deal to me. But you do not dislike poor Oliver, -Rita?”</p> - -<p>“Dislike him! Do you think I am made of stone? He has done everything, -<i>everything</i>, while you have been ill. I should be a demon if I did -not—if I disliked him as you say.”</p> - -<p>“But there is a great difference,” said the Vice-Consul, “between -dislike and—I don’t know, my pet, what word to use.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, there is a great difference,” she said, demurely; and having her -paper neatly arranged before her, she proceeded to write the note which -follows:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="indd"> -“Dear Mr. Oliver,<br /> -</p> - -<p>“Papa is a great deal better. He thinks he would like to see you on -Sunday if you would be so good as to come out here. He has been -very much touched to hear of all you have been doing for him. And -so am I. He wants to know all about it, and to thank you. But do -not think you will be troubled with any thanks from me, for I know -that you do not mean to be kind to us, though on the outside it -looks like it.</p> - -<p class="c"> -<span style="margin-right: 15%;">“Truly yours,</span><br /> -“<span class="smcap">Margherita Bonamy</span>.”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> - -<p>Here was once more her malice, which she could not put out of the -question between them. She was glad that her father did not ask to see -her note, and she put it up and sent it away with a little quickening of -all her pulses. Sunday was the next day, but she felt sure enough that -Harry would let no engagement prevent him accepting this invitation. -They sat in silence for some time after that letter was despatched. Rita -felt her whole life quickened, her horizon wider, the day of more -importance, the passing moments more weighty. She sat quite silent, her -mind being full of so many thoughts. At last the Vice-Consul spoke, as -if no pause had occurred. “Notwithstanding,” he said, “you know Oliver -is not clever, Rita; that must be taken into account.”</p> - -<p>On this Rita, not perceiving that she betrayed the strain of her own -thoughts by receiving the remark without surprise, answered, with a -little sigh of regret, “No, he is not clever; but perhaps there are some -things that are better than being clever,” she added, in a doubtful -tone.</p> - -<p>Mr. Bonamy laughed a little, faintly. “Are you coming to see that?” he -said.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know if I am coming to see it, papa. I think I always saw it. -One does not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> think much whether the people one cares for are clever or -not.” Then perceiving the inference which might be drawn from her words, -Rita blushed wildly, and turned suddenly upon her father defiant eyes. -But he did not make any remark, half because he was weak, half because -of a mingled pang of satisfaction and pain to think that “the people she -cared for” now included other relations than those of the earliest stage -in life. A father, perhaps, feels it more than a mother when his -daughter’s heart goes away from him to another man: there is a keener -jealousy in it, a sharper sense of contrast. He had concentrated all his -happiness in his child; and, lo! in a moment there appeared a stranger -in her life who would be more to her than he was. The first shock of -this discovery is always painful; and as he lay there bearing this and -thinking over all that was before him, an infinite sadness came into the -Vice-Consul’s smile. It was not only natural that this blossom of his -life should detach itself from him, but it was well. To preside at and -assist in the replacement of one’s self by another, preparing as it were -the preliminary ceremonials of one’s own funeral, is a curious -experience; but Mr. Bonamy felt, with a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> melancholy that this was -the thing which it now remained for him to do. He could not help making -comparisons between himself and Harry. Harry was not clever; he was a -good fellow who sat and gaped when the conversation took anything beyond -a practical turn. Yes: he was a very good fellow; he had been a saviour -in trouble; but yet—Mr. Bonamy smiled sadly at the idea of stepping -down from his throne, and bidding Harry mount in his place; he could not -promote him to his vice-consulship, but he could promote him to the -throne of Rita, which was more. And it would be well—the best thing -that could happen. Having once had an “attack,” which was how he put it -euphemistically—a man was sure to have more; and the third kills. -Therefore, how needful it was, how essential to have some one to care -for Rita, somebody in whose hands he could leave her—when he died! -“When I die”—these are words which it is hard to say without some faint -shiver. When one is far off from all appearance of that conclusion, they -may be easy; but when the preliminaries of the end have already taken -place, and the clouds are gathering towards the great final tableau and -termination, then the very cadence of them has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> something in it that -gives a tingle to all the nerves. “When I die.” Mr. Bonamy was not much -over fifty; he had not thought of anything of the kind. But here it was -looking him in the face whether he would or not.</p> - -<p>Harry came at the summons without a moment’s delay. He brought a full -report of all the business to lay before his chief. The Vice-Consul, -notwithstanding his dreary thoughts, was making unmistakable progress. -He was better every day. He was able to take an interest in all that his -deputy had to tell him, and to feel the gratification which all the -office had shared in baffling the man from Florence, and showing him a -state of affairs with which no fault could be found.</p> - -<p>“I told him, Sir, that your business was always in too perfect order to -break down with such a little trial. I showed him how we had only to -follow your rule, and all was clear.” Mr. Bonamy laid his thin hand upon -the young fellow’s shoulder, and patted it softly.</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” he said, “if you would say as much for me if I had no -daughter?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Harry, with the utmost energy; “don’t think, Sir, that I had -any interested motive.” This pleased the Vice-Consul; and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> pleased -him too that Harry resented with scorn, and almost indignation, the idea -that he might not return to his work, or that this illness of his was a -break up, as in his heart Mr. Bonamy believed it to be. Harry knew -nothing whatever about medicine, but his light-hearted certainty that -his patron would be in the office again in October as well as ever, gave -a cheer to the sick man’s failing heart, as shouts of encouragement from -the shore, and the sight of all the eager assistants ready to help and -watching every struggle, cheer a vessel which is trying to reach a -dangerous harbour. There began to steal into his heart a feeling that, -perhaps—after all. Notwithstanding he held by his first resolution. He -had a long conversation with Harry, which had nothing to do with -business. The young man never forgot that half hour’s talk, with the sea -air blowing softly over all the sweetness of the garden, the cicala in -the trees, the sound of the Mediterranean beyond. Harry thought that -once or twice he saw in the dim room beyond a little white figure appear -in the distance, opening a door, looking wistfully to see if the -conference was nearly at an end, then disappearing again. And though the -Vice-Consul was opening the gates of heaven to him, at that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> moment even -Mr. Bonamy seemed tedious. The last time the apparition showed the -Vice-Consul had gripped Harry’s hand with those long worn fingers, which -he called claws, not without a certain justice. “And you must give me -your word never to take her to England,” he was saying, in a low and -earnest voice. But before Harry could reply, Rita, impatient, had come -across the dim room indoors, and was standing in the window with a -pucker in her forehead, and a tone of querulous impatience.</p> - -<p>“You ought to have had your beef-tea, and your champagne, and your -tonic, and all your nourishments,” said Rita. “I have looked in a dozen -times, but you were always so busy! What can you have to say to Mr. -Oliver all this time? He ought not to keep you so long—when you know an -invalid wants feeding constantly,” she said, turning with petulance to -Harry. “How could you be so thoughtless, Mr. Oliver? that was not kind -at all.”</p> - -<p>Harry did not reply anything to this tirade. He looked at her as if the -mere sight of her was enough for him; as if nothing that could be said -made any difference. As for Rita, she was not tranquil, but excited, and -half angry. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> impossible to suppose that they had not been talking -about her, and like many other people she objected mightily to being -talked over. She came out and in with a nervous, irritable haste, -bringing trays with food and medicine which she would permit no one to -touch. Harry, when he offered his help, was driven from her with -contumely, and even Benedetta, making her appearance behind, had the cup -of jelly she carried snatched from her hands and was sent summarily -away.</p> - -<p>“I will have no one serve papa but myself,” Rita said. Perhaps there was -a little compunction in it. When the heat of devotion has cooled do not -we sometimes add all manner of observances to make up outside for what -is wanting within? She was nervously conscious of Harry’s presence, and -aware of the approaching moment when he would insist upon speaking for -himself. And now compunction had seized her capricious soul. She was -angry with her lover because he had stolen her heart from its first -owner. And she would fain have persuaded that first owner even in the -act of betraying him that she was his entirely, and that everything -which withdrew her from him was a pain and irritation to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> her. Harry, -being simple, was deceived and greatly discouraged; but the Consul, -having more insight, was never deceived.</p> - -<p>And in the evening the inevitable explanation came. It could not be -delayed any longer. The <i>Curiosa Impertinente</i> reaped the consequences -of all her tricks, and all the trials to which she had subjected Harry. -She fell into the pit which she had herself digged. She might even have -been said to be at his mercy, but for his simple devotion, which thought -of no vengeance, and her own spirit and pride, which would have carried -her through any reprisals, and still might have turned the tables upon -him: but in the evening, when the Consul had gone to bed, they wandered -about the terrace under the soft Italian stars, and understood each -other.</p> - -<p>“There is only one thing,” Rita said. “Nothing in the world shall induce -me to call you Isaac. Choose another name, choose any name you please; -but Isaac you are not going to be. What could tempt anybody to call a -child Isaac? it is dreadful. Godfathers and godmothers ought to be -within the reach of the law.”</p> - -<p>Then there suddenly seemed to encircle Harry for a moment the atmosphere -of a very different<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> place. Grey hills rose around him, the stars took a -cold, yet a kinder sparkle; the blue depths of the sea faded away into a -misty valley full of vapours.</p> - -<p>“When I was a child,” he said, “they called me Harry.” He did not make -any further explanations, nor did he feel that any were necessary. For a -moment he seemed to see his mother, with her two thin hands clasped -together, and to hear her voice calling him: but this was but a phantom, -a pale vision, a thing that had passed away for ever. Next moment he was -back again in the warm Italian night, with the cicala chirping, and -Rita, in a little burst of enthusiasm and pleasure, calling him by that -familiar unrelinquished name.</p> - -<p class="fint"> -END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.<br /> -<br /><small> -London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13 Poland Street.</small> -</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63158 ***</div> -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/63158-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/63158-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index a9e070a..0000000 --- a/old/63158-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/63158-0.txt b/old/old/63158-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 12bb524..0000000 --- a/old/old/63158-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6329 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2 of 3, by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2 of 3 - -Author: Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: September 9, 2020 [EBook #63158] -[Last updated: October 29, 2020] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY JOSCELYN; VOL. 2 OF 3 *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - VOL. II. - - - - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - - BY - - MRS. OLIPHANT - - AUTHOR OF - - “The Chronicles of Carlingford,” - - &c., &c. - - - IN THREE VOLUMES. - - VOL. II. - - - LONDON: - HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, - 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. - 1881. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - - - HARRY JOSCELYN. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -HARRY’S RESOLUTION. - - -There is nothing that grows and strengthens with thinking of it like the -sense of personal injury. Harry Joscelyn had been very angry when he -left home; but he was not half so angry at that moment as when he looked -out of the window of the railway carriage, as the train swept through -the valley, and saw in the distance the village roofs, over which, had -there been light enough, and had his eyes served him so far, he might -have seen the White House seated, firm and defiant, upon the Fellside. -And every mile that he travelled his wrath and indignation grew. When he -reached Liverpool he had formed his purpose beyond the reach of -argument, or anything that reason could say; and reason said very little -in the general excitement of his being. He had been turned out of his -home, he had been refused the money by which he thought he could have -made his fortune. He felt himself cast off by everybody belonging to -him. His mother had permitted that final outrage, he thought; for surely -she could have found means of help if she had chosen to exert herself. -His Uncle Henry had bought himself off, and got rid of a troublesome -applicant by the gift of that twenty pounds. They were all against him. -He thought of it and thought of it till they seemed to be all his -enemies, and at last he came to believe that they were glad to get quit -of him, to be done with him. This was the aspect under which he -contemplated his relations with his family when he got to Liverpool; and -the effect upon him was that of a settled disgust with all the ordinary -habits of his life, and its fashion altogether. When he thought of -returning to the office, to his former routine as clerk, the idea made -him sick. It seemed to him that he could do anything, or go anywhere, -rather than this. But though the impulse of abandoning all he had been -or done hitherto was instantaneous, he could not quite settle in a -moment, with the same rapidity, what he was to do, or be, in the future. -He crossed to the other side of the great river with his little bag of -“needments,” the linen Mrs. Eadie had bought for him and a few other -indispensable things which he had himself procured, and lived in one of -the villages there, which have now grown into towns, watching the ships -go by, and leaving his mind open to any wandering impulse that might lay -hold upon it. In these days the River Mersey was a great sight, as -probably it is still. To the idle young man, accustomed to some share in -the perpetual commotion of that coming and going, there was meaning in -every one of the multitudinous ships that lay at anchor in the great -stream, or glided out, full-sail, to the sea, or were poked and dragged -away by a restless, toiling little slave of a steam-tug, carrying off -its prey like one of the devils of the Inferno. He knew where they were -going, and what they had to bring from afar, and all about their bills -of lading and the passengers they carried. The river had not to him that -grandeur of prose which becomes poetry, and fact which turns to romance, -in less accustomed minds; but was only a huge highway, a big street -full of crowds coming and going, over which he brooded, wondering where -he should plunge into the tide of movement, and how take his first step -out of the horizons which hitherto had bounded him. He did not say, as -his mother might have done, “Oh, for the wings of a dove!” but he put -that profound breath of human impatience into nineteenth century prose, -and said to himself, “If I had but a steamboat, a yacht, anything to -take me out of reach of all of them, where they will never hear of me -again!” He was not rich enough, however, to hope for a yacht, so that -all he could really do was to decide what “boat” he would go with, and -whether he should turn his steps across the Atlantic, or choose another -quarter of the world in which to become another man. - -He went to the office one day, as Philip Selby discovered, and asked for -the amount of salary due to him, and purchased a few more necessary -articles of clothing; and he wrote to the persons to whom he owed money, -telling them that he was about to leave Liverpool, but would send them -their money without fail within a certain period. He did not know how -this was to be done, but he was resolute to do it, and he had no more -doubt on the matter than he had that he should perfectly succeed in his -plunge into the unknown. But after he had done this he remained for some -days longer by the river-side with a self-contradictory impulse, -watching the ships go by, and putting off the execution of his project. -Where was he to go? To resolve to give up his own identity, to separate -himself for ever from his family, and all his belongings, and all his -antecedents, was easy; but to make up his mind which boat he was to go -by, and whither he was to betake himself, was much more difficult. -America was so hackneyed, he said to himself, with that fastidious -impatience and disgust which is one of the characteristics of a sick -soul: everybody goes to America; it would be the first idea that would -occur to everyone; and this made him throw away that first suggestion -angrily, as if it had been an offence; but if not to America, then -where? He tossed about various names in his mind, satisfied with none, -and when at last he made his decision, it was made in a moment, with the -same kind of sick disgust and impatience as had made him reject the -other ideas as they presented themselves. He was crossing the river to -Liverpool, leaning over the side of the ferry steamboat lest anybody -should see and recognize him, and in his own mind passing in review the -advantages and disadvantages of all the ships he passed. The Mersey was -very full and very bright, the sun shining, a brisk breeze blowing, the -sky blue, the great estuary throwing up white edges of spray and leaping -here and there against the bows of an out-going boat, in a manner which -boded little comfort to unaccustomed sailors outside the shelter of its -banks. The opposite shore was still clothed with trees beginning to grow -green in the earliest tints of spring, and not unpleasantly mingled with -the beginnings of docks and traces of mercantile invasion. Nature, as -yet, had not given up her harmonizing power; the touches of colour on -the masts, a national flag flying here and there, even the sailors’ -washing fluttering among the yards, was an addition to the brilliancy of -the spring lights. The ferry-boat was full of people, though it was not -the hour for business men to be moving about. The freight was a more -varied one than that mass of black-coated figures which weighed it down -to the water’s edge in the morning. But Harry turned his back upon them -all, and looked over the side, watching in a dream the long trail of -water which slid under the bows and was caught and churned by the -paddle-wheel. The motion, as he watched it thus, soothed him, and took -the place of thinking in his mind, carrying him vaguely, he knew not -whither, just as he would fain have been carried beyond the ken of men. -He was waiting the guidance of chance, not caring what became of him. -Something caught his ear suddenly as the ferry-boat rustled along by the -side of a long low steamer with raking masts and short funnels, which -lay not far from the bank. - -“I wouldn’t go in that boat for the world,” some one said. The remark -caught Harry’s ear, and roused him into mere wantonness of opposition. -“Why?” he said to himself aloud. It did not matter whether it was said -loud or low, nobody but himself could hear it as he leaned over the -rushing water. “I’ll go.” He was in such a condition of perversity that -this was all he wanted to fix his purpose. - -He landed on the Liverpool side, no longer languidly, but with the air -of a man who has something to do, and went straight to examine the ship -and ascertain where to apply for his passage. She was bound for -Leghorn. He went stepping briskly forth to the office of the agent, and -then with a mixture of economy and gentility, still conscious of the -importance of the family from which he was about to cut himself off, -took a passage in what was called the second cabin. - -“What name?” said the clerk. What name? he had not considered this -question. Should he give his own name, thus leaving a clue to anyone who -chose to inquire? The doubt, the question was momentary: “Isaac Oliver,” -he said, and looked the man in the face as if defying contradiction. But -the clerk had no idea of contradicting him; as well Isaac Oliver as -Harry Joscelyn to the stranger, who knew nothing about either. Five -minutes after he could not tell what had put this name into his head; -but his fate was decided, and beyond correction. He went home with a -curious feeling in his mind, not sure whether it was amusement, or -shame, or anger with himself and fate. It was all three together. He was -himself no longer, he had thrown away his birthright. What had tempted -him to take the name of Isaac Oliver he could not explain. He laughed, -but his laugh was not pleasant. He was annoyed and appalled and -disgusted with himself, but he could not alter that now. All the evening -he roamed about the riverbank, looking at the ships going out and in, -and the little steamers rustling and fuming across the gleaming water, -and all the many coloured symbols and ceaseless industry of the scene, -with a strange sense of having lost himself, of having so to speak died -in the middle of his life. He could not get over it. He was living in a -little inn which had been turned into a sort of suburban tea-garden, -instead of the little neat ale-house it once was. The weather was very -fine and warm, though it was so early in the season, and every steamboat -disgorged a crowd of visitors to sit under the half-open foliage of the -trees, and in the damp little arbours. Harry avoided all these visitors -in the fear of meeting some one who might know him. Harry! he was not -Harry any longer. The mere giving of the false name had changed him. He -did not know who he was. He was confused and confounded with the sudden -difference. Had some one called out Harry Joscelyn quickly, he thought -that it would no longer have occurred to him to answer. He was not Harry -Joscelyn; and who was he? The name he had chosen, or which some -malicious spirit had put into his head, seemed to float before him -wherever he went. He shuffled in his walk unconsciously as he fled from -himself along the margin of the great flood. What had he done? He had -abandoned not only his own name and family, but his own condition, his -place in life. Wherever he went, he would be known as a peasant, a -common countryman, he thought, never thinking in his pre-occupation that -the strangers among whom he was going knew just as much about Isaac -Oliver as about Harry Joscelyn. The night grew dark, and the great river -gleamed with a thousand sparkles of light like glowworms. Little -vessels, each with a coloured lantern, went darting across and across, -lights swung steadily with a sort of dreamy regular cadence from the -stationary ships. The stars above were not more manifold than those -little lamps below. The quiet of the night had hushed the sounds of the -great city on the other side, and all the heavy hammers and the din of -machinery: but still life was busy, coming and going, darting on a -hundred messages; pilot boats steaming out to sea, little dark tugboats -bringing back cargoes of souls out of the unknown. But Harry thought of -nothing save of the strange, unpremeditated step he had taken; that one -incident filled all the earth to him; a momentary impulse, a deed that -was scarcely his, and yet he felt that it would colour all his life. He -stayed out till the passenger boats had stopped and all the visitors -were gone. The little inn was shut up and dark, all but one little -querulous candle sitting up for him, when he went home: home! he called -this temporary refuge by that sacred name involuntarily--just such a -home he now said bitterly, as he would have for the rest of his life. -Fortunately next day the Leghorn boat was to sail, and his new start -would be made without time to think about it any more. - -Isaac Oliver took possession of his berth next morning. He went on board -early, and lounged about the deck all day. For the first time this -morning it occurred to him that they might send after him, that his -departure could not have passed altogether without notice among his -friends. He had not thought of this before, but now it came upon him -with some force. They would try to stop him at the last moment. The very -name he had chosen would betray him, for who but Harry Joscelyn would -call himself Isaac Oliver? He kept on the further side of the ship, -leaning over the bulwarks, and watched everybody who went or came with -jealous eyes. Tardy passengers came on board one after another, bringing -luggage and new items of cargo and provisions; there was scarcely a -moment without some arrival, and every one of them, Harry felt, must be -for him. When at last the gangway was detached, the anchor weighed, the -latest idler or porter put on shore, and the very screw in motion, he -felt sure there must be some last attempt, some appeal from the quay. -“Have you one of the name of Harry Joscelyn there?” he thought he could -actually hear them calling; and saw the rapid examination of the list of -passengers, and the shaking of heads of the captain and his immediate -assistants, who were standing together high above all the others. When -there could be no longer any doubt that the steamboat was off, and that -no appeal of the kind had been made, a quick and hot sense of offence -came over Harry. He had been alarmed by the idea of being identified and -stopped at the outset of his voyage: but as soon as he was certain that -he was to be allowed to proceed peaceably on that voyage, his heart -burned within him with a sense of injury. Now it was indeed all ended -and all over, his life, his name, everything to which he had been -accustomed in the past. He went below to his berth, with a sense of -complete abandonment and desolation which it would be impossible to -describe. It appeared to him that until now he had only been playing -with the idea, amusing himself with all the preparations for a change -which would never really take place, which somehow would be stopped and -prevented at the end. But nobody had put forth a finger to stop him, and -now the end was accomplished and beyond all remedy. Up to the time he -came on shipboard he had not thought of being stopped, but now he felt -as if he had expected it all the time, and was grievously injured and -heartlessly abandoned by all the world and by all his relations, not one -of whom would lift a finger on his behalf. He went down to his shabby -berth in the second cabin, and felt much disposed, like his mother, to -turn his face to the wall. But, perhaps fortunately for Harry, the sea -was rough, and when the vessel steamed out of the Mersey and felt the -full commotion of the waves outside, he was sick, and not in a condition -to care for anything. - -In this way he lost the thread of his trouble for the first two days: -and then novelty and excitement began to tell upon him, and he came -altogether to himself. No, not to himself: he did not feel clear about -who he was or what. He came to--Isaac Oliver, looking that new personage -in the face with a bewildered awe of him and wonder at him. Isaac -Oliver! who, he wondered vaguely, could he be? not a son of old Isaac, -who had only little children--a nephew or a cousin, some off-shoot of -the family, if the Olivers could be called a family, a suggestion at -which he smiled in spite of himself. That must be who he was, the -offspring of a race of peasants, no better blood, no other pretensions. -The Joscelyns were a very different class of people, but he had given -them up, he had shaken off all bonds between them and himself. “In for a -penny, in for a pound,” he said to himself, setting his face to it with -a smile, as the steamboat bore up along the Italian coast, and “the old -miraculous mountains hove in sight.” Harry did not feel any special -interest in Italy: he was of the class who never travel, and understand -but little why one place should be more interesting than another. And, -indeed, Leghorn does not sound like Italy to any traveller. What he -knew of it was that it was a busy sea-port, where there were merchants’ -offices and a thriving trade. He did not interest himself much about -anything else. He had his living to make, alone and unbefriended in a -strange country: need was that he should collect himself and pluck up a -heart and think what he was to do, now that he was so near the place of -his destination--or, at least, not what he, but young Isaac Oliver, was -to do. Would any merchant take him in without character, without -introduction or testimonial? This thought was like a cold breath going -through and through him, when he began to think. But he had still a -little money in his pocket, and could afford to wait and look about him -for a week or two. There is always something turning up in a busy place. -And Harry, accustomed to occupation all his life, could not believe that -he would ever starve where there was anything to do. - -They had touched at various other ports on the way, whose chief claims -to be visited were such as Harry had little understanding of, and the -eagerness of his fellow-passengers to get on shore and see these places -had surprised him. For his own part, he did not see the fun of going to -see a succession of churches and pictures. He had seen but few pictures -in his life, and he had never been taught that they were of much -importance. He had, indeed, privately, an honest contempt for such -things, though he said little about it. He was disposed to ask, “What -are you all staring at?” when he was brought face to face with an early -Master, a thing which he would have banished into the darkest corner had -it been his. But when he got into the harbour at Leghorn he began to -feel himself once more _dans son assiette_. He knew what the docks -meant, and appreciated the masts of the shipping better than if they had -been the most delicate works of art. It was nothing to Liverpool, but it -was something he could understand and felt at home with. He landed in -better spirits than he had experienced for a very long time. He felt a -moral certainty that he should “get on” here. - -But what a shock it was when the unaccustomed Englishman stepped first -on shore, and found himself in the midst of a strange life, of which he -did not understand even the first word! He knew very well, of course, -that it was a foreign place, and that English was not spoken there; but -he never had realized that it would be impossible by speaking loudly, or -using a sort of broken English, or some other simple contrivance, to -make the barbarous natives understand. Even an individual much better -educated than poor Harry may be excused if the shock of that -extraordinary solitude and isolation which surrounds him when he finds -himself incapable of understanding a word of what is going on, is a -surprise and irritation as well as a discomfort. He stood on the quay -with his little portmanteau by him--after having been rowed over endless -links of basins, all full of clear green sea-water, cut like a great -jelly by the progress of the boat, to the landing-place--and stood there -aghast, and, indeed, agape, hustled by the crowd, and with a grinning -porter on each side of him making offers of incomprehensible service. He -would not deliver himself over into the hands of any such harpies he was -resolved, not even when they addressed him in a word or two of English, -though the sound was as balm to his ears. He stood over his portmanteau -and angrily pushed the facchini away, but at last got hold of a lad -whose appearance pleased him, who was tidier than the rest. To him -Harry said “Hotel?” in a sort of half-questioning, half-suggestive way; -but this was not enough to get him clear of the officious crowd, who -flew at him with names which conveyed no meaning to his ears. Harry felt -like a man caught in a hailstorm as he was pelted with those big -sonorous syllables. He grew furious with confusion and bewilderment. He -had not been thought specially strong on the Fells, but here his -North-country muscles told. He pushed away the crowd, who he thought -were making a joke of him, and took up his own portmanteau. “The -gentleman is all right,” said some one beside him; “you have no -education, you are without manners, you others,” and somebody took off a -hat and made a salutation, somebody who reached to about Harry’s elbow. -It was civil, and the first part of the sentence had been said in -English, so Harry, learning by experience, conquered his wrath, and was -civil too. “Can I perhaps indicate a hotel?” this new personage said; -“Mister is an English?” Harry stood still and looked down upon his new -acquaintance, not quite clear as to the meaning of what he said. He was -a little man, small and dainty, dressed with quaint care, with high -shirt-collars, and a large black cravat tied in a bow, and the most -shining of black hats, which he took off when he spoke. He was -olive-complexioned, with big, dark, soft Italian eyes. “Mister is an -English?” he said; “by paternity I am an English, too. I will indicate a -hotel if the gentleman chooses. It will deliver him from _la canaglia_, -what you call this rabbel,” he added, with an ingratiating smile, and a -great rattle of his _r’s_. It was mere good-nature, but Harry was by no -means sure of this, and he knew that foreigners were deceivers. “Thanks, -I won’t trouble you,” he said, abruptly, and lifting his portmanteau--it -was not a big one--strode away. He felt angry and depressed, yet -excited. The astonished look of the little man, who made him another -bow, and replaced his hat with a shrug of his shoulders at the -Englishman’s want of manners, added to his discomfiture. Perhaps he had -made a fool of himself by refusing those good offices which were offered -to him, Harry thought. Perhaps he would have been a bigger fool had he -accepted. Perhaps they were all in a conspiracy to rob him. He strode on -and on, somewhat ashamed of his own appearance with the portmanteau, as -if he were too poor to pay anyone to carry it, and thoroughly -bewildered altogether amid the sounds and sights which he did not -understand. But at the end he got into an inn where there was some one -who spoke English, not such a usual accomplishment in these days as it -is now; and where he got a room which was very strange of aspect to the -untravelled young man. The half hour which he passed there, seated upon -the odd little bed, with his portmanteau at his feet upon the tiled -floor, all so strange, so desolate to Harry, was as terrible a moment as -he had ever passed in his life. His very soul was discouraged, sunk low -in his breast with a kind of physical drop and downfall. It was all he -could do not to burst out crying in his forlornness and helplessness and -solitude. What could he do in a place where he did not understand a -word? In many cases novelty is delightful, but there are some in which -it is the most dreadful of all depressing circumstances. Everything, -from the dingy tiles under his feet, and the dark eating-room -downstairs, with its unaccustomed smells, up to the blaze of the Italian -noon, and the incomprehensible tongue that everybody spoke, weighed upon -Harry. He covered his face with his hands, sitting there upon his bed. -What evil fate had led him to this unknown place? What should he do -without even a name that belonged to him, without a friend? A gasp came -into his throat, and the hand that covered his eyes was wet. He felt -himself bowed down to the very ground. - -After thus “giving way,” however, Harry braced himself up, and recovered -at least the appearance of courage. He made the best toilette he could -by the help of the small washing utensils, which were not so entirely -abhorrent to English customs then as they are now--for baths were not -very general, and washing-basins were but small, in the first quarter, -if not the first half, of this century. And then he sallied forth -refreshed--into a new world. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -A NEW WORLD. - - -Harry strayed about the town during the afternoon, losing his way, and -finding it again; but got back to the hotel before the important hour of -dinner, of which the English-speaking waiter had informed him. He was -less amused than depressed with all he saw. The perpetual talk that -seemed to be going on around him--sharp, varied, high-pitched, -incomprehensible--gave him at first a sense of offence, as if all these -people were doing it on purpose in order to bewilder him, and afterwards -a profound feeling of discouragement. He was not clever he was aware. He -had never been very great at his school work, and how was he to -accomplish the first preliminary, the very initial step of existence -here, the learning of the language, to which he had no clue, and of -which he could not make out one word? It seemed to him as if years must -elapse before he could master the very rudiments of the new tongue; and -how was he to seek for work, or to get work to do, not knowing the very -A B C of the life about him? Harry went doubling about the unfamiliar -streets, looking with wistful eyes at every passer-by who had the look -of an Englishman, and asking himself what he was to do. He did not seem -to have any spirit left for the uphill work of learning a language. -There rose up before him a vision of the exercises which he had once -laboured at, daubing himself with ink, and of the verbs which he had got -by heart overnight only to forget them in the morning. To think that he -could not even ask his way! Wherever he strayed he looked at the people -helplessly, as if he had been dumb, and anxiously examined all the -street corners, without venturing to approach any shop, or lay himself -open to any encounter. He was more fortunate than might have been -expected in this point, for he found the right street corner at last, -and the house, with its strange old courtyard, and the long dark _sala_ -which looked into it, and in which the guests were already gathering. -The house had a good reputation, and the large room was nearly full. -Harry, who had never seen anything of the kind before, saw the people -take their places, each appropriating his own turned down chair, and -half finished bottle of wine, and looked for his own place with a -curious sense of the everyday character to the others of all these -proceedings, which to him were so unusual. Yesterday, at the same hour, -no doubt they had all been here, and last year, and as long as anybody -could recollect, munching a slice from the long Italian loaf, the yard -of bread which of itself astonished his simple-minded ignorance. To -think that with such an air of routine and long establishment this -dinner should have been happening methodically every day while he was -pursuing his work at Liverpool, or taking his holiday at home. At home! -The words sounded like a bitter sarcasm to the young man, who had no -home--who had now no identity, no self to fall back upon, but had begun -to exist, so to speak, only a few days ago. And to think this table, -with all its soils and steams, should have been waiting for him all this -time! - -“’Ere, Sarr, ’ere,” said the English-speaking waiter, his black eyes -rolling in his head with pride and pleasure in this exhibition of his -gift of languages. He was holding the back of a chair which had been -carefully turned down, and was placed between a fat old Italian, with an -enormous depth of double chin, and a small figure, which Harry -recognised at once as that of the man who had spoken to him on the quay. -“De gentelman speak English,” said the waiter, bowing with amiability -and pleasure. Harry, it is to be feared, did not appreciate the -exertions made in his behalf. The little stranger, on his side, was as -smiling and bland as the attendant, delighted to make himself agreeable. -They both thought it the most pleasant thing in the world to surprise -the sulky and speechless Englishman with a companion to whom he could -talk. “Mister have found his way after all to the Leone,” said his -friend, “I wish myself joy of it. It is what I most did desire. He is -the best hotel, the very best hotel in all Livorno. Most of the -strangers, what we call forestieri, find their ways here. Mister will -find himself very comfortable; the kitchen is excellent, and the -chambers--the chambers!” here the little man spread out his hands with -ecstatic admiration, “so clean, so comfortable; everything an -Englishman desire.” - -Harry was cross, and he was suspicious. He thought the reappearance of -his first acquaintance looked like a conspiracy, and that probably -between the man and the waiter it was an understood thing that the -Englishman, who was so ignorant, should be made to pay for his -initiation into foreign ways. But he had no intention of being made to -pay if he could possibly help it. He had not the slightest understanding -of the waiter’s benevolent wish to make him comfortable, or the innocent -satisfaction of the other, at once in showing off himself and his -acquirements and showing kindness to a stranger. Harry did not realize -the national character in both, which made them pleased to serve him, -and anxiously on the watch for the look of pleasure which they -anticipated as their reward. An English servant would have looked on -with anticipations of another kind. He would have watched to see the -stranger’s hand stealing into his pocket: and on this point no doubt -Antonio had as sharp an eye as anyone; but his Italian soul, asked for -something more; he wanted to see a glow of pleasure in the face of the -person to whom he had just, as he thought, done a service. Harry -refused to pay in this wise. His countenance, somewhat dark before, -settled down into a heavier gloom. He drew in his chair to the table -roughly, losing part of his companion’s address: and he did not look at -the young man who was talking to him, or give him any recompense for the -effort he was making. After a while he made a remark, but it was not a -very civil one. “Why do you call me Mister?” was what he said. - -The stranger looked at him, complacent still, but yet a trifle -abashed--“Because,” he said, stroking a small moustache, and fixing his -eyes upon Harry with a smiling yet deprecating glance, “I do not know -the gentleman’s name.” - -“Even if you don’t know a fellow’s name,” said Harry, ruthless, “it -isn’t English to say Mister. Mister is a title of contempt.” Here the -horrified look of his new acquaintance made him pause. “I mean when it’s -used alone without the name. Low people sometimes use it so--but nobody -who speaks decent English,” Harry said. As he spoke the stranger’s olive -countenance caught flame and grew crimson. He laughed an embarrassed, -uncomfortable little laugh. - -“It is that I am mistaken,” he said; “I have not spoke English moch. The -gentleman will pardon my error. My name is Paolo Thompson,” he said, -with a little wave of the hand, introducing himself. - -“You would like to know my name,” said Harry. - -The Italian-Englishman replied, not with any expression of offence, but -with a smiling bow. - -“My name is----” he made a pause. He looked at the interested -countenance beside him, a sense of the ludicrous mingling with his -suspicious distrust of all strangers and foreigners. What did it matter -what he said to a little impostor like this? “Oliver,” he added, with a -laugh. He almost thought the little fellow, though not an Englishman, -must see the incongruity, the absurdity, of associating the name of -Oliver with such a person as Harry Joscelyn. It suddenly became a -practical joke to him, a masquerade which everyone must see through. - -“O---- livr,” said little Thompson, with a long emphasis upon the first -letter, and a hurried slur over the rest; “that right? alright! Mister -O--lvr.” - -“Not Mister,” said Harry, growing benevolent as he felt a little -amusement steal over him, and he tried to give his new acquaintance the -_nuance_ of sound which divides the Mr. of English use and wont from -the two distinct syllables of which Paolo was so fond. They grew friends -over this attempt at unity of pronunciation, or rather Harry permitted -himself to grow friendly, and to ask himself what harm this little -foreigner could do him--a little hop o’ my thumb, whom he could lift in -one hand. As he laughed over his new friend’s attempt to catch the -difference of sound, his friendly feeling increased. He felt his -superiority more and more, and in that superiority his suspicions melted -away. As for little Paolo he took everything amiably. He had no -objection to be laughed at. - -“You mean not bad,” he said, “I know; you mean not to make angry. Laugh, -it is a way of us English. My father was an Englishman. I never know -him; he was died before I am born; but I too am an English by origin. It -is for that I have my place. I am Interpreter. I put what you say in -Italian. I put what one would say to you in English. Thus I please to -both,” said the little man with lively satisfaction; and he laughed when -Harry laughed with genuine good faith. Perhaps it was the reaction from -his past despondency which made Harry laugh so much, perhaps the little -bravado of a stranger feeling himself gazed at and isolated among a -crowd of people alien to him. He attracted the eyes of all the guests at -the table-d’hôte especially of some Americans who had come in late, and -one other Englishman who regarded him gloomily from the other end of the -table, and concluded that his countryman was having too much to drink, -but that it was not his business. Harry was not taking too much to -drink; he was making wry faces at the sour Nostrali, which was the only -wine provided without a special order. Harry did not understand any wine -except Port and Sherry, and he despised the sour stuff of which he took -one big gulp and no more; he did not know what else to order, and he did -not like to mix up Paolo in his affairs so far as to ask his advice on -this point. Paolo for his part was drinking a little of his wine in a -tumblerful of water, not without some alarm lest the _eau rougie_ should -go to his head. He told Harry all his story as they sat together. His -father had been an English clerk, sent out from England to an office in -Leghorn, who had married an Italian girl, and died in the first year of -their marriage. Paolo was very proud of that fine and aristocratic name -of Thompson, of which there was a Lord and many Sirs, he informed Harry -with great but smiling seriousness; his mother, though she had been so -young, would never re-marry herself, though pressed on all sides to do -so--such was her devotion to her youthful husband who was English, and -to the romantic and euphonious name which he had left her. The young man -grew every moment more friendly. Harry’s suspicions all floated away as -he listened to the story, and laughed at the accent and grammar of his -new acquaintance, who laughed too with perfect good-humour. Thompson--he -was a fit associate for an Oliver, Harry said to himself, knowing -nothing about any Oliver save Isaac whose name he had appropriated. -After dinner was over Paolo proposed that they should go for a stroll; -and though Harry had done nothing else but stroll all the afternoon with -very small advantage, yet he was quite willing to begin again with the -aid of his friend’s knowledge. It was less lonely than sitting in the -dreadful little room of which Paolo had ventured to say that it was so -comfortable, and exactly what an Englishman liked. Harry shuddered at -the thought; he had never been used to sit in his bedroom, and he could -not but feel it a sort of humiliation that he had no other room to sit -in. His new friend was a wonderful example of costume to the untrained -taste of Harry. He wore trousers of a large check, but a black evening -coat over them, a large shirt-front, a black ribbon at his neck tied in -a bow, and varnished shoes. He was very well contented with his -appearance. When he added an opera-hat to all this finery, the sensation -in his little bosom of thorough self-content was very warm. Harry could -not but laugh at the little exquisite, whose gorgeous apparel was so -unlike anything he had ever seen. - -“I don’t know if I dare to walk out in my coloured clothes with such a -swell as you are, Thompson,” he said. Paolo looked down upon himself -delighted. He knew he was well-dressed. - -“You are all right,” he said, “an English, that covers all; but when one -is only by origin, more must be done. Komm a-long.” He stretched up his -hand, which he had just clothed in light kid, to Harry’s arm, who had no -gloves, nor any other advantage. The Angelus was sounding from all the -churches as they set out. Harry could not but wonder if there was an -evening sermon, or if it was a series of prayer-meetings which were -going on. He was much surprised that foreigners should have such devout -habits. It surprised him, too, to see how soon it got dark; but as it -happened there was a brilliant moon which soon made the streets as light -as day. And as soon as the sacred hour of sunset, the fatal hour which -Italians dread, was over, the streets filled with a crowd which still -more surprised Harry. Before all the cafés the pavements were -crowded--not only men, but women, seated at the little tables enjoying -the freshness of the lovely evening, and making such a hum and babble of -talk as nothing but an unknown tongue can produce. A language which is -familiar to us never sounds so like an uproar and tumult as one that is -unintelligible. Harry’s first thought was that the people about him were -all quarrelling; his second that this chatter was the riotous and -boundless gaiety which he had always heard attributed to “foreigners;” -but the scene amused him, though it was so unintelligible, and by and by -a degree of toleration which years at home could not have conveyed to -him, began to penetrate his mind. Perhaps after all it was only the -different habits of these unknown people, and neither quarrelling nor -riot. Sometimes one would jump up in the midst of a conversation as if -impelled by a sudden outburst of fury, and address his friends, -gesticulating wildly; but after Harry had taken the alarm, and sat ready -to strike in if any harm happened, he noticed that the friends of the -violent person took it quite calmly, turning upon him looks which were -full of smiling placidity, and evidently fearing nothing. In the same -way when two men were threading their way along the street together, one -would suddenly drop the other’s arm, and standing still, discourse with -every mark of excitement for a minute, then resume his friend’s arm and -go on again as if there had been no interruption. An Englishman would -have knocked down his adversary with much less demonstration. Harry felt -himself obliged to pause too, and give an eye to these personages; and -when he also sat down with his companion at one of the little tables, -his attention to Paolo’s doubtful English was constantly interrupted by -the same supposed need of watchfulness in case the party next to them -should come to blows. But all the other people took it quite quietly, to -Harry’s great surprise. - -“Why do these beggars jump up in that way and look as if they were going -to knock some other fellow down?” Harry said at last. - -“Beggares?” said Paolo, looking round hastily; and then, for he was a -young man anxious to improve himself and quick of apprehension, he -jumped at the Englishman’s meaning. “Ah! that is English for questi -Signori, these gentlemen? beggares! capisco, capisco!” said Paolo, -clapping his hands as at an excellent joke; “they do nothing but make a -little conversation, what you call talk,--these beggares;” and he burst -forth once more into a genial peal. - -Harry was half pleased to have achieved such a facile success, and half -alarmed lest perhaps Paolo might be laughing at him. He said with a -suppressed growl, “Conversation! do you call that conversation? I -thought they were going to fly at each other’s throats.” - -“No, no, no--never fly at each other’s throats; they have too much -education,” said Paolo; “it is the Italian animation, that is all. An -English is what you call quiet. He talks down here, not out of his -mout,” and Paolo beat himself upon the breast, and pointed to about the -spot out of which Harry’s deep bass proceeded. Harry was by no means -pleased with this familiarity, but he reflected that the little man was -his only friend among all these strangers, and subdued his displeasure. -He did not know very well what to do with the pink syrup that was -furnished him to drink: that, and the sour wine, and the black coffee, -were all alike out of Harry’s way. Oh, that he could have had but one -mighty draught of English beer to clear all these cobwebs out of his -throat! But this was an indulgence, like so many others, to be hoped for -no more. - -After Paolo had sipped the rosolio which Harry contemplated with such a -mingling of alarm and disgust, they got up and continued their walk. -By-and-bye, in the full moonlight, they strolled towards the port, and -walked about on the quays, among the shipping, which threw up its black -lines of masts, and dark lace of cordage against the silvery light of -which the sky was full. Harry was interested about all this, much more -than about churches or pictures. And he threaded his way among the -ropes, and piles of barrels and cases with which the quays were -encumbered, with a stir of curiosity and hope. Should he find his life -and work within the circle which surrounded these instruments of wealth? -He paid but little attention to the talk of his companion as they went -along. He seemed to see once more the new career before him which he had -been doubting an hour or two before. It was not a very magnificent -prospect: yet work that suited him might surely be found when there were -goods to be exported, and counting houses to look after these goods. He -did not know what might become of him in this strange place, but -whatever his fortune might be it was all he could look forward to, and -his mind seemed to take a new start from the appearance before him of a -possibility, a strain of existence which he understood. He forgot, as he -listened to Paolo’s chatter going on by his side--which filled him with -a vague, superficial sense of superiority--all about the new language to -be learned, and the difficulties which had almost overwhelmed him in the -afternoon. Thus he went on, allowing his companion to talk, and thinking -his own thoughts, till they emerged from the immediate regions of the -basins and docks and came back to the streets. They were crossing one -which was very dimly lighted, and which Paolo informed him led into the -better quarter of the town, when they came in sight, or, rather in -hearing, of a party of sailors in a noisy state of exhilaration. What -could they have been drinking, Harry wondered, thinking of the sour wine -and the rosolio, to make them so convivial? They were singing rude -choruses, and making night hideous with jokes and loud laughter, bearing -a wonderful family resemblance to noises of the same kind which Harry -had heard near the port of Liverpool--when there suddenly crossed the -moonlit-road, between the revellers and the two orderly passengers, a -couple of female figures moving rapidly, figures very easily identified -as those of an elder and younger woman--a sedate and ample personage, -with a girl clinging to her. Two of the sailors, with a holloa of -satisfaction, started forward in pursuit. They overtook the women when -they were close to Harry and his companion, and one of them seized the -girl by the arm. She gave a frightened cry, and the other woman, -throwing her arm round her, pushed the men away, pouring forth a volley -of rapid Italian, of which Harry of course did not understand a word. He -made a stride forward to the fray. Paolo, on his side, who was small and -not valorous, did his best to hold him back. - -“It is not our business,” he said, with a certain faltering in his -voice. - -“Tell them to let go the girl,” said Harry, with brief determination. - -“It is not our business,” said the alarmed interpreter. - -“Tell them they had better let go that girl,” repeated the young -Englishman. - -Then little Paolo stood forth, with a courage which was not his own, and -addressed the sailors. He took off his hat with the utmost politeness -and remonstrated. Harry, beginning, by dint of hearing them repeated, to -distinguish the words, at last understood that “Questo Signor” must mean -himself; but the sailors treated the remonstrance with contempt. The -other one took hold of the girl by the other arm, while she screamed, -and her companion raved and scolded at them, pushing and struggling with -all her might. Harry stepped forward into the moonlight. He lifted up -his clenched fist and his big bass voice. “Let go that girl,” he shouted -in good English, with a voice that roused all the echoes. The men did -not know a word he said; but they understood him, which was more to the -purpose. They let go their hold in a minute, and stood staring at the -intruder as sheepishly as any Englishmen could have done, and perhaps -also with a touch of shame. Little Paolo, trembling yet triumphant, kept -close to the champion, while he stood and faced them, ready for -whatever might happen. It was not for nothing that Harry was a -Joscelyn. He stood well up to them with a watchful eye and a ready arm. -The women had escaped under cover of this unexpected interposition from -their first assailants, but another pursuer by this time had got upon -their track. “Let’s have a look at your face, my pretty lass,” this lout -said, as he rolled along. Harry’s blood was up in a moment. “Oh, by -Jove!” he cried, as if the sound of his native tongue had been the last -aggravation, “this is too much. I know what to say to you, at least, my -fine fellow,” and he turned upon his countryman like lightning, and -promptly knocked him down. “I am not going to stand any nonsense from -_you_,” he said. - -It was the affair of a moment--no more. The women flew along the street, -disappearing up the nearest opening. Harry strode on after them with his -blood up, but walking with the most dignified tranquillity. He would not -even turn round to see what had happened. “If he thought I was going to -stand _him_,” he said, as he went along, “that fellow, by Jove! but he -was in the wrong box.” As for little Paolo, between fright and -admiration, he was at his wit’s end. He danced along, now hurrying -Harry on, now facing the other way, walking backwards to keep the other -party in sight, and uttering alarmed entreaties. “Run! run! What if you -’ave kill him?” he cried. “Vergene Santissima! they are coming. You ’ave -done it now, you ’ave done it, and no one to help. Per Bacco! and he -goes as if it were a festa. Run, Mister, run!” - -“I told you not to call me Mister,” said Harry, walking on with perfect -coolness and at his ordinary pace. Paolo was half beside himself. -“Perhaps you have kill a man,” he cried, “and you stop to set right my -English--at such a moment----” - -“Pooh!” said Harry; he would not have quickened his steps for a fortune. -“Don’t you know the beggar is an Englishman? A broken head won’t hurt -him. Let’s keep the women in sight, they might get into more trouble.” -Paolo followed him, trembling and hurried as they got further off; but -the noisy sailors were busy about their fallen comrade, and made no -attempt to follow. They were too much startled by the summary -proceedings of the stranger, and kept back by a certain sense of justice -which seldom fails in such an affray. The little Italian kept close to -Harry like a dog, rushing about him, now a little in advance, now a -little behind. “He ’ave pick himself up,” he said, looking back. “Dio! -how the English understand each other! He is not kill.” - -“Killed!” cried Harry, contemptuously. “It takes more than that to kill -an Englishman, even a beast like that fellow. You may palaver with your -own kind, but I know what to do with mine. Come along, Thompson. Where -have those women gone?” - -Here Paolo caught him by the arm, dragging him into the narrow street by -which the flying figures had disappeared. One side of it was in almost -perfect darkness, while the other was white and brilliant in the -moonlight. “You like to know who it was,” he said. “Per Bacco! I know.” - -“It does not matter to me who it was,” said Harry, “so long as they are -safe, that is all I care for. Women have no business to be out so late -at night.” - -At this Paolo nodded his head a great many times in assent. “But that is -English too,” he said. “How you are strange! You let a young lady go in -the street, and you kill a man, and never think more of it! and the man -when he is kill, get up and walk away instead of to avenge himself! You -are strange, very strange. I understand you very well, for I am an -English too.” - -After this somewhat startling incident, however, they did not linger -long on their way. It had stirred the blood in Harry’s veins and given -him the new start he wanted. There is nothing like a new incident for -familiarising the mind with any great change in this life. Hitherto he -had thought of nothing but his own transmogrification. Now he had -something else to think of. He got back to his inn unmolested and -uninterrupted, and he found his dreary little room not so dreary when it -became a shelter for his fatigue, and a refuge in which to think over -the strange excitement of this first new day. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -SETTING OUT IN LIFE. - - -Next morning Harry was woke by the appearance of his little friend at -his bedside. For a moment it was all fantastic to him like a dream, the -narrow slip of room with its tall walls, and straight windows, and the -strange little figure by his bedside. “Hallo,” he said, “who are you, -and what do you want?” opening his sleepy eyes, and springing up in bed. -Paolo retreated with a little alarm. - -“I go to the bureau,” he said, “but before I go I am here to say good -morning. What will you do without me?” the little man added with great -simplicity. “Get lost, get into what you call skrape. Antonio, he speak -a little. I come to advise that you take him with you. It will be only -five lire, not very moche for an English.” - -“I wish you could remember,” said Harry pettishly, “to say an -Englishman. An English is no sense: you never hear _me_ say that.” - -“Alright,” said Paolo good-humouredly. “I will remember; but it will be -better to take Antonio; he shows you everything, all the palaces and -streets, and you give him cinque lire--five,” holding up his fingers -spread out to show the sum, and counting them with his other hand, “and -you talk, he tell you things in Italian, you make a lesson out of him,” -he added with a grin, showing all his white teeth. - -It was a sensible suggestion, but Harry was perverse. “That is all very -well,” he said, “but I don’t care about seeing your palaces; what I want -is to get something to do. Ain’t there a _Times_, or something with -advertisements? where a fellow could see what’s wanted?” - -Paolo looked at him with a doubtful air, and his head on one side like a -questioning sparrow. He was so small and so spare, and Harry so big, -stretched out in the small bed which could not contain him, that the -simile held in all points. It appeared unnecessary that he should do -more than put out his hand to make an end altogether of his adviser, and -there seemed a consciousness of this in the little man himself, who, -recollecting last night, hopped a little farther off every time that -Harry advanced leaning on his elbow, and projecting himself out of bed. - -“You bring letters, you are recommended?” he said. “No?” A cloud came -over Paolo’s face; then he brightened again. “You come with me,” he -said. “The Consul, that is the prince of the English--man. You come wid -me, and I will recommend you. I will introduce you. He have much -confidence, what you call trost, in me.” - -“But you don’t know anything about me,” said Harry. - -Paolo looked at him with an effusion of admiration and faith, “Siamo -amici,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart with a sentiment and air -which to the cynical Englishman were nothing less than theatrical. But -Harry did not understand what the words meant. - -“That is all very well,” he said again, supposing that this was a mere -compliment without meaning. “But what could you say about me? nothing! -You don’t know me any more than the Consul does--or anybody here.” - -“Between friends,” said Paolo, “there is not the need of explanation. I -understand you, Mister. Are you a Christian or a Protestant,” he added -quickly, “have you a name of baptism, perhaps?” Paolo did not want to -hurt the feelings of his new friend in case he was not provided with -this article. But Harry’s pride was wounded to the quick. - -“A Christian,” he cried, “or a Protestant? I am both a Protestant and a -Christian! I never heard such horrible intolerance in all my life. It is -you who are not Christians, you papists praying to idols--worshipping -saints, and old bones, and all sort of nonsense.” Harry was so much in -earnest that his face grew crimson, and Paolo retreated yet another -step. - -“You heat yourself; but it is not needed,” he said, waving his hand with -deprecating grace. “Me, I am above prejudices. Here one calls one’s self -Giovanni or Giacomo, or Paolo, as with me; and when the person is -respectable of years, Ser Giovanni or Ser Giacomo; but if one has not a -name of baptism, it is the same, that make no difference----” - -“Do you take me for a heathen that never was christened?” cried Harry. -“My name is----” here he stopped and laughed, but grew redder, with a -dusky colour; but “in for penny in for a pound,” as he had already -remarked to himself--“my name is Isaac--Isaac Oliver, as I told you,” -he said. - -“Bene, bene!” said Paolo. “It is enough, I will say to the consul: here -is Mister Isaac, who is my friend. He is English--man; yes, I -recollect--man; and I respond for him. He will be so condescending as to -take a situation; he will interpret like me; he will make the Italian -into the English, and the English into the Italian.” - -“But how can I do that?” said Harry, “when I don’t understand one word -of your lingo? I can’t do that.” - -Paolo’s countenance lengthened once more; but he speedily recovered -himself. - -“That will teach itself,” he said. “I will talk; I will tell you -everything. Aspetto! there is now, presently, incessantly--an occasion. -Komm, komm along; something strikes me in the head. But silence, the -Vice-Consul, he it is that will settle all.” - -Harry did not think much of Paolo’s recommendation; but yet the idea of -appealing to the Vice-Consul was worth consideration. The thought of an -Englishman to whom he could tell his story--or if not his story, yet a -story, something which would seem as an account of himself--was like a -rope thrown out to him amid a waste of waters. And, as an Englishman, he -would have a right to be listened to. English officials are not like -American, the natural vassals of their countrymen; but still, when a man -is at his wit’s end, there is something in the idea that a person of -authority, in whom he has a vested interest, is within reach, which is -consolatory. To be introduced to this functionary, however, by Paolo, -whose position did not seem to be very important, did not please Harry’s -pride. He sent the little fellow away with a vague promise of thinking -of it, which disappointed the friendly little man. Paolo could not -restrain his anxious desire to be of use. He went off to the Farmacia to -buy soap and tooth-powder for his amico, and even proposed to fetch him -the little bicchierino of acquavite, with which some people begin their -day, a proposal which filled Harry with horror. Paolo put his -dressing-table in order with the care of a woman, and lingered, anxious -to do something more. He would have brushed his friend’s clothes, if -Harry would have let him. He was proud of his new discovery, the big -Englishman, whom he had secured to himself, and whom he admired in -proportion to his own smallness and inconsiderableness. Something of -the pleasure of a nurse with an infant, and of a child with a new toy, -was in his bustling anxious delight. When at last, however, he was half -forced, half persuaded to go away, Paolo made a few steps back from the -door and held up a warning finger. - -“Mister Isaack mio,” he said, “one must not any more knock down. It is -not understood in Livorno. That which can well do itself in England is -different: here--it is not understood.” His face had become very grave, -then a deprecatory smile of apology broke over it. “In Italy they are in -many things behind,” he said. “It is not--understood.” - -“Don’t be afraid, Paul-o,” said Harry, laughing, “I shan’t knock down -anyone to-day. Even in England we don’t do it but when it is necessary. -You may trust me, I shall knock nobody down to-day.” - -“Alright, alright!” said Paolo, with a beaming countenance. He turned -back again to instruct his friend at what hour it would be best to come -to the bureau. “I will speak, and you shall be expected. I will respond -for you,” the little man said. - -At last he went away full of amiable intentions and zeal in his friend’s -cause, zeal which deserved a better reward. For Harry did not build -much upon the influence of Paolo. It hurt his pride to think of -presenting himself anywhere under the wing of this little Italian clerk. -He would stand upon his own qualities, he said to himself, not upon the -ready faith and rash undertaking of a stranger; but though he put it in -this way, it was not in reality because he objected to Paolo’s trust in -him, or thought it rash as another man might have done, but because he -felt himself Paolo’s social superior. It would be hard to say on what -this consciousness was founded. Harry’s only superiority had been his -family, and that he had put away. As he was dressing, he turned over a -great many things in his mind which he might say to the Vice-Consul. Few -young people understand how much better policy it is in all such cases -to speak the truth than to invent the most plausible of stories, and -Harry was not wiser than his kind. He made up various fictions about -himself explaining how it was that he thus presented himself alone and -unfriended in an altogether strange place--all of which he would have -stated with a faltering tongue and abashed countenance, so as to impress -the falsehood of them upon the hearer; for to invent excuses is one -thing, and to produce them with force and consistency another. -Successful lying, like everything else, wants practice; few men can -succeed in it who only do it once in a way. It requires study, and -careful consideration of probabilities, so that the artist shall not be -put entirely out by an unforeseen question: and it needs an excellent -memory, to retain all that has been said, so as not to contradict -previous statements. Harry possessed none of these qualities, but then -he was not aware of the want of them; and the thing which made him -depart from tale after tale was not any suspicion of their weakness, or -his weakness, but an inability to please himself in the details of his -romance. And then the thought of going as it were hat in hand, to ask -the Consul to provide him with employment, and the inevitable starting -forth of little Paolo to pledge himself for everything his friend might -say, discouraged him. He grew downhearted as he put himself into the -best apparel he had, and brushed his hair, and endeavoured to look his -best. Would it not be better to start off again, to go, though he had -made up his mind against it, to America after all? There, there would be -no language to learn, no difficulty in understanding what was said to -him. He went down and swallowed his breakfast, coffee and bread, which -seemed to him the most wretched fare, turning this over in his mind. But -for one thing he did not like to be beaten; no Englishman does, he said -to himself; and Harry was of the primitive, simple kind of Englishman -who clings to all national characteristics. He could not bear to be -beaten, to contradict himself as it were, and depart from his plan. -While he was thinking of all this, however, a brilliant expedient -occurred to him. Though he was reluctant to tell his own story, he was -not disposed to screen himself by any fiction of excuses from the -consequences of anything he had done; and it was undeniable that he had -“got into a row” on the previous night. No Englishman, he reflected, -would think the worse of a young fellow who had knocked down a drunken -sailor to prevent him from molesting a woman; but it would be as well to -go and tell the story of this little incident in case of any ulterior -proceedings. Harry fairly chuckled over his own wisdom in hitting upon -so admirable a way of presenting himself to the representative of his -country. He had never before felt himself so clever. He munched his dry -bread and drank his coffee with a wry face, but something like a mental -relish at least. Little Paolo’s friendly conscience would not need to be -strained. He would be able to bear witness of the facts in all -sincerity, and, if anything were to come of it, there would be at least -a friend in court, a valuable advocate secured. Antonio, the waiter, -drew near while Harry came to this conclusion, and watched him -dispatching his simple refreshment with friendly looks. The Italians -admired the young Englishman’s fine limbs, and height and strength, and -they made a pet of him because he was a stranger and helpless; perhaps -the waiter was not without an eye to substantial rewards, but he had at -the same time a most friendly eye to Harry’s helplessness, and an -amiable desire to make him comfortable. He stood and watched him eating -with sympathy. - -“Ze gentleman would like an egg, perhaps, Sarr?” he said. - -“I should like half-a-dozen,” said Harry with a sigh; “but no, no, never -mind--never mind; for the present this will do.” - -“Ze gentlemen Italian eat no breakfast,” said Antonio; “ze eat--after; -but I will command for ze English gentleman, if it makes pleasure to -him, ze English breakfast. There is already one here.” - -“One--breakfast!” said Harry, surprised. - -“One,” said Antonio, with a finger in the air, “English-man, and two -tree Americans; ze eat of ze beef in ze early morning. It is -extraordinary: eat of ze beef when you comes out of your bed. But it is -the same--it is the same; that makes nothing to our padrone; and I will -command it for ze gentleman if he will.” - -“I wish you would,” said Harry, “another time; dry bread is not much to -breakfast upon: and the bread is very queer stuff.” - -“It is good bread,” said Antonio, “Sarr, very good bread; bettare far -than ze bread of London;” he nodded his head as he spoke with -self-satisfaction. “Ze gentleman would like me go wid him--show him all -ze places, and ze grand catedral, and all that ze English gentleman go -over ze world to see?” - -“No, Antonio; I don’t care about cathedrals, but you can come with me to -the English Consul’s if you like, and show me the way.” - -“I like very moche, Sarr,” said Antonio, with a grin. “Ze English -gentlemans please me. Zey is astonished at everyting. Ze pictures--O! -bellissimi! and ze palazzi, and ze churches. It is noting but O! and O! -as long as zey are walking about. But, Sarr,” said Antonio, coming -closer, “Livorno is not moche. It is a city of trade. Com to Firenze, -Sarr, if you would see beautiful pictures and beautiful houses. Ah! that -is something to see. Or to Venezia--better still. I am of Venezia, Sarr. -Ze gentleman will not say to Signor Paolo that I tell him so, but -Livorno--pouff!” Antonio blew it away in a puff of disdain. “Firenze and -Venezia, there is where you will see pictures--everyware--of Raphael and -Michael Angelo, and Tiziano, and----” - -“I don’t care much about pictures,” said Harry, calmly. “I like the -shipping better. You can take me to the docks if you like. I don’t want -you to tell me about them. I like to see things I know about myself. But -I tell you what, Antonio, you may teach me the names in Italian, if you -like; that will always be making a little progress,” Harry said, -suddenly bethinking himself of Paolo’s suggestion. - -Antonio’s face had lengthened by several inches. An English gentleman -who did not want to see pictures was a personage of whom he had no -understanding. He began to think that Harry was not a genuine -Englishman after all. - -“Ze signor is perhaps Tedesco--no? Or Americain--no? I have known many -English,” said Antonio, gravely, “but zey all run after ze pictures. Ze -gentleman is what you call an original. Benissimo! that makes noting to -me. Ze sheeps in ze harbour are very fine sheeps. You will not see no -bettare--no, not in England. Ze signor wishes--eh?--perhaps to make -observations, to let ze Government--ze ministers know, Italy is now a -great country, and ze others are jealous. You fear we will take ze trade -all away?” - -“Not so bad as that, Antonio,” said Harry, with a great laugh. “Where I -have come from I wish I could show you the docks; they are about ten -times as big as these.” - -Antonio grinned from ear to ear. He did not believe a word of what Harry -said. “If it pleases to ze gentleman,” he said, laughing too. He was -perfectly tolerant of the joke, and glad to see his _protegé_ cheerful. -Then Harry jumped up from the table, poorly sustained for the business -he had in hand by his light meal, but somewhat anxious to get through -the ordeal he had proposed to himself. Antonio, however, who appeared -presently in the well-worn and assiduously brushed costume of a _laquais -de place_, could not quite let him off the inevitable sightseeing. He -led him to the Duomo and into the great Square with a pretence that this -was on the way to the Consul’s office, and made him look at again, -whether he would or not, the same public buildings which he had gazed at -dreamily as he wandered about the streets the day before, and looked at -languidly in the moonlight under Paolo’s active guidance. He had been -but twenty-four hours in Leghorn, and already he had associations with -the street-corners, which probably he would never forget. Already this -new world was acquiring known features of acquaintanceship; his life -beginning to put forth threads like a spider’s web, and twist and twine, -the new with the old. It startled Harry to feel that he was no longer a -stranger here, where he had landed so forlorn. After the round which -Antonio beguiled him into making, it was about eleven o’clock before -they reached the door over which the well-known British symbol was put -up. The outer office was full of people and business, sea-captains and -merchants’ clerks, and even a few examples of the kind of traveller who -is most common in Italy, he who travels for pleasure and not for -business. Harry had to wait among the rest who were seeking an audience -of the Vice-Consul. Here Antonio left him, and he could not see anything -like the olive-countenance and brilliant costume of Paolo; but it was an -English group among which he stood. The clerks even spoke English, if -one or two of them displayed the tongue-tied hesitation which is common -to all classes when they speak a language imperfectly understood. One of -the tourists did his best to draw Harry into conversation, lamenting the -cruel fate which had detained him in such a place. He was just starting -for Pisa, this pilgrim said, where there was really something to see. -“One might as well be in Liverpool as here,” he said. Harry did not make -any reply. This was just the reason why he himself approved of Leghorn -more than of any other place he had seen. When it came to his turn at -last, almost all the other appellants and petitioners had been seen and -dismissed. They all wanted something; and Harry’s new acquaintance had -talked and worried him so much with his dislike to a place where there -was so little to see, that he had almost forgot the manner in which he -had arranged with himself to open his own story; when at length -everybody else was despatched, and he had to go forward to his audience. -His heart beat a little faster as he went in. The Vice-Consul was a man -of a portly presence, something like an English merchant of the higher -class, with grizzled hair, and an aspect of great respectability and -authority. He was fully conscious of his dignity as the representative -of the British Government, and of Her Majesty herself, amid an alien and -inferior race. He did not think much of Italy or the Italian people, and -he felt it was his mission in life to keep them down. He was seated in -great state upon a large chair, which swung round with him when he -moved. His table, his papers, the manner in which he appeared over them, -with the air of a judge on the bench, was very imposing to a stranger, -especially when that stranger was in difficulty and came to ask help. He -made Harry a very formal bow, and pointed to a seat near, which had -something of the air of a seat for the prisoner at the bar. - -“What can I do for you?” he said, with a dignified inclination of his -head; after the first glance his look softened. He was used to see a -great many people, and it was a compliment to Harry’s appearance that -it interested the Vice-Consul. He almost smiled upon him, with a -benignity in which he did not very often indulge. - -Then it was that Harry’s real difficulties began; but how thankful he -was that it was a true story he was telling, and not a fictitious -account of himself! - -“I came to tell you, Sir,” he said, “of something that occurred last -night--a scrape--that is to say a row I got into. I suppose I must call -it a row.” - -“It is a great pity when strangers get into rows in a foreign town, -Mr.----Oliver. I think you said Oliver?” - -What a fool I was thought Harry!--as he did after every new production -of that name; but his last chance of reclaiming his own was now over. - -“What you say is quite true,” he said, “and I should not have been such -a fool but for urgent cause. I knocked down a fellow who was annoying a -lady. He deserved a great deal more than I gave him; if he had been an -Italian I might have hesitated, but he was an Englishman. So I just -knocked him down.” - -“Very wrong, very wrong,” said the Vice-Consul, “and a curious way of -showing your preference for your fellow-countrymen. But you had better -tell me all about it. When did this occur, and where?” - -Harry described the place as well as he could. “There was a lot of -them,” he said. “The Italians--if they were Italians--gave way when I -spoke to them. I’ll do them that justice. The English fellow, I did not -say anything to him. I was not going to argue with a brute like that. I -just quietly knocked him down. It was a young lady and a woman with her. -You see, if I had stood there talking, the others might have been up to -us, and have given her more annoyance. I daresay it did not hurt the -fellow much; and if he’s a man he’ll take it quietly, for he deserved -it; but I thought it was perhaps best to let you know.” - -The Vice-Consul had started slightly when Harry described, as well as he -could, the locality in which this incident took place. Now he asked -quickly, “And the lady--did you know her? and did she get clean away?” - -“Know her!” said Harry, “I only arrived here yesterday; besides I did -not want to know her: it might not have been pleasant for her. We -watched her safe out of reach; indeed we went on till we heard a door -shut where she lived, I suppose. No, it was not for that. It was to say -that if the fellow complained, or brought any action, or anything of -that sort--I wanted you, Sir, being the representative of England, to -know the real facts. That is how it was.” - -There was a smile about the Vice-Consul’s mouth. “As it happens I have -heard about it already,” he said. “I’ll speak to you farther on the -subject by-and-bye--Don’t be alarmed, it will do you no harm; sit down -and rest yourself, and wait for a few minutes. I am going in to lunch -presently, and I’ll talk to you then,” the Vice-Consul said. Harry did -not know what to think. The consequences could not be very bad, since -this great functionary restrained a smile; but there was evidently a -second chapter to the adventure. Harry withdrew as he was directed to -the other end of the office, and there stood gazing at railway -timetables, and pictures of ships. There was all about a line of vessels -to America from Genoa which had lately been established, just the very -thing for him if he intended to do what he had been thinking of. But -Harry scarcely knew what he was looking at. All these questions seemed -things of the past. What was the Vice-Consul going to say to him? What -was to come of it? Till he knew this he could not think of anything -else. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE VICE-CONSUL’S DAUGHTER. - - -A door in the Vice-Consul’s office opened into a long passage with a row -of windows on one side, which communicated with his house. When the hour -came at which, after the comfortable fashion of leisurely Italian towns, -the office was shut up for the midday meal, the Vice Consul made Harry -an amiable sign to follow. He led him through this passage, which looked -upon a courtyard full of plants, where a fountain trickled in the -sunshine, into a large cool room with all its _jalousies_ closed, and in -which for a minute or two he saw nothing. He was being introduced into a -sort of enchanted country it seemed, unlike anything he had ever known -or thought of; the tiled floor was almost covered with soft rugs, -according to a fashion not then known in England, and the furniture -dimly discerned in the gloom, was like rocks at sea to the stranger who -had no chart of the confused and intricate passage. Something white in a -corner, something which moved a little when they came in, was all he -saw, and he could not make out even what that was till his eyes had got -accustomed to the light. Then he perceived with a great tremor and shock -of shyness that it was a lady, a slight girl in a white dress who looked -up to nod to her father, then seeing a second figure behind him, rose -hastily with a shy grace. Harry was still more shy than she was. He was -not accustomed to the society of ladies. And he was dreadfully hungry, -having had nothing but that dry bread and coffee, a circumstance which -made him still more depressed and timid. He did not at all know why he -was introduced so suddenly into this other world. He thought he was only -going to an inner office, or perhaps--but that was a blessedness he -dared scarcely hope for--that the Consul in his kindness had meant to -give him some luncheon. But the drawing-room confused him wholly; he had -done nothing to merit such an introduction. He only half took in -accordingly the meaning of the words the Consul said, “Look here, Rita, -I have brought your champion of last night.” - -“Oh!” That purely English exclamation sounded to Harry the sweetest -syllable he had ever heard. The white figure came a step forward. By -this time he began to see through the gloom, and what he saw was a very -young face, with two great dark eyes, lifted to him full of wonder and -pleasure. Then a hand was put out, “Was it you?” she said eagerly. “Oh, -yes, I remember!” And before he was aware the hand, smaller and softer -than any such article previously known to him, touched his for a moment. -Harry dropped into the chair which the Vice-Consul pointed to him in -utter confusion of surprise. He was not even able to notice what an -extraordinary advantage to him such an introduction was. He was simply -astonished more than words could say. - -“This is Mr. Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul. “He came and told me all -about it without a notion who you were. And you see how surprised he is. -He thought, I suppose, I was taking him into a kind of genteel prison. -It must be added that, if you only arrived yesterday, you lost no time -in getting into a row.” - -“Did you only arrive yesterday?” said the delightful little voice, in -which there was a flavour of something not English, though the English -was perfect. “Oh, how glad I am that you did arrive then! What would -have become of us otherwise? for no one but an Englishman wandering -about the most unlikely places could ever have found himself just -there.” - -“And nobody but an English girl would have risked herself in such a -place,” said the father. “I hope you will take that to heart, my dear. -This girl,” he added, turning to the young man, “is by way of despising -all Italian precautions. She is an English girl, she tells everybody, -and she will not be a slave like the others: and old Benedetta is an old -fool and never goes against her. One of her pensioners was ill last -night, that was why the monkey was out at such an hour. When I am at the -Club there is nobody to put her to bed.” - -“As if I was a little child to be put to bed! It was the dearest old -woman, and she would see me. The priest had been sent for and the -sacraments; could I refuse to go--now could I? And how was I to know men -were so dreadful? But you see, papa, there are always the good angels -about.” - -“When I was young the angels were all feminine,” the Vice-Consul said, -“and we called the ladies by these pretty names, not the ladies us.” - -“Perhaps you never did so much for any girl. Oh, how frightened I was -when that man took hold of my arm! and then to hear an English voice as -if it were coming from the skies, ‘Let go that girl!’” - -“How did the fellow understand, I wonder?” the Vice-Consul said. - -“If I had not been so frightened I should have laughed. They did not -understand a bit! It might just as well have been Greek; but if it had -been Greek they would have understood,” cried Rita, putting her hands -together with grateful enthusiasm. All this time Harry had never spoken -a word; indeed, there had been no opening for him to speak. - -“You must have thought me a big idiot to say anything at all,” he said. - -“Oh! I thought you---- I won’t tell you what, or papa will say something -disagreeable. It was so grand the English voice; and then their hands -dropped as if I had been fire.” - -“I should have broken every bone in their bodies,” cried Harry, with -unnecessary fervour, “if I had known it was _you_ they touched with -their filthy fingers!” He did not know why he made this violent speech, -which was far from elegant, and quite unsuitable to the refined and -still atmosphere in which he so unexpectedly found himself. As for Rita -she blushed a little, and laughed a little, in the soft green twilight, -finding it not unnatural that he should have been doubly indignant at -the idea that it was _she_ who was in danger. She was accustomed to -believe that anything disagreeable was doubly offensive when it happened -to her, and that she was about the most important little person in the -world. But she was one of the rare people whom such a knowledge does not -spoil. It seemed to her quite simple--was not she her father’s only -child, and only pleasure in life? She had been aware of this fact ever -since she was born. - -“Hush, hush!” said the Vice-Consul; “we must have nothing more about -breaking bones: to knock down one fellow was quite enough. But I am very -much obliged to you, Oliver. I can’t make a stranger of you after this. -My little girl is all I have in the world, and whoever is good to her is -good to me. If you are going to stay in Leghorn, I hope you’ll let me be -of some use to you; but I don’t suppose that’s very likely. Meantime, -Rita, don’t you think we had better go to lunch?” - -What welcome words these were to Harry! He was excited and pleased by -the adventure altogether; his head was a little turned by the enthusiasm -of gratitude with which he was received, and the atmosphere around this -young creature, who was a kind of mystic half revelation to him. He had -not yet made out her face quite distinctly, and yet he was admitted to -all the privileges of friendship: the strange sensation intoxicated him. -But yet when her father spoke of lunch, all that went out of his head. -Consider that he had eaten nothing but about half a yard of tasteless -bread that day! and it was one o’clock. But Harry was not without -manners; though the pangs of appetite made him faint, he got up politely -and made a pretence at taking leave. Needless to say that the -Vice-Consul was above taking advantage of his position, “No, no, no; we -are going to keep you to luncheon,” he said, with a _bonhomie_ which was -irresistible. Harry thought him the most delightful person in the world, -only a little less delightful than the other unknown being who made him -feel tremulous and abashed, though so happy. The dining-room was -lighted from the shady side of the courtyard, and there was accordingly -light enough to see by. The meal was not a foreign breakfast, but an -English luncheon of a substantial kind, and it is safe to say that Harry -had never been so happy in his life as when he had taken off the first -fierce edge of appetite, and had begun to be able to enjoy the novelty -and yet the familiarity of this unexpected scene. Mr. Bonamy (which was -the name of the Vice-Consul) without laying aside the dignity as of a -benevolent prince which was so remarkable in him, showed all the -condescension of a thoroughly amiable potentate; and Rita was---- Rita -was something of which Harry had no previous conception. She was about -sixteen--no more. Her face was the face of a child, but lighted up by -two beautiful large eyes which she had got from her Italian mother. She -knew, or seemed to know, everything her father knew, and was used to be -talked to about all that happened. If it were not Joan putting in her -word occasionally in a long discussion when her interference was seldom -received but with either blame or contempt, Harry had never been -accustomed to women who took any share in the conversation going on; -and to hear this child talk bewildered him. She had a slight girlish -figure, a small face almost without colour, the faint sweet flesh tints -of which were thrown up in the most delicate distinctness by the white -of her dress. She seemed all spirit, all life, a creature made of air -and sunshine rather than flesh and blood to Harry. And about himself -there was so much flesh and blood! He listened to the conversation -rather than joined in it, feeling himself an admiring audience rather -than a partaker in their talk. One thing only he felt moved to say, and -that was about his own appetite, which he feared they would think -preposterous. “I feel more like a wolf than a man,” he said. “I hope you -won’t think I’m always like this. I never was abroad before, and I don’t -know the ways. And I had no breakfast but some of their queer bread. -This bread is delightful,” Harry said, with enthusiasm. The father and -the daughter were delighted with him, appetite and all. - -“I am so glad you never were abroad before,” said Rita; “now one sees -exactly what England is like. Oh, yes, papa, you need not laugh. I see -the English green, and the trees waving, and the winds blowing, all in -Mr. Oliver’s face. And there is a little sound of the sea, and a shadow -of hills--not big mountains, but nice, kind hills with sheep-bells -tinkling----” - -“We have not many sheep-bells, Miss Bonamy, in my country,” said Harry; -“the hills are more grey than green, and there is a great deal of fog in -the winter, and east wind, and rain----” - -“Oh, don’t tell me about the bad things, tell me about what is -pleasant,” said Rita. “The east wind is not so bad as the scirocco, and -the rain is delightful. I know all about that. As for the fog, the -painters say it is more picturesque than anything. They say there is -always a soft delicious sort of haze, and you never see things sharp cut -out against the sky as they look here.” - -“Have you never been in England?” Harry said, with a little surprise; -and then he saw that a shade, a sort of cloud, come over the lively -table, and the two animated faces. Rita shook her head, and then began -to talk quickly to him about the neighbourhood, and all he would have to -see. Harry had protested to his humble friends that he wanted to see -nothing but the shipping, but he did not repeat this sentiment here. He -learned in a moment that to be fond of pictures was a necessity, and -that there were certain things which every Englishman in Italy had come -expressly to worship. Rita’s opinion “of course” convinced him in a -moment. He never made the slightest stand against it. Henceforward he -knew what was expected of him. When she went out of the room waving her -fingers to him in sign of goodbye, Harry suddenly became quite grave, -and felt all at once as if the light had gone out of the sky. And there -was more than sentiment in this feeling; for now he found himself face -to face with the Vice-Consul, and it was very evident that, so much -having passed between them, something more would now have to be said. -Mr. Bonamy offered the young man a cigar, and, lighting his own, leant -back in his chair, and evidently awaited some further disclosures of his -mind and purpose. - -“You are thinking of staying in Leghorn,” he said. - -“I am thinking,” said Harry, feeling his colour rise, “of trying to get -employment, if I can; a situation of some kind.” - -“Employment!” said the Vice-Consul. It was impossible to deny that he -was disappointed. His voice had an accent which there was no mistaking. -Harry had not much refinement or education, but he had an air which -would have been perfectly consistent with the rank of a young squire, an -English country gentleman of simple mind, and no great amount of -culture, travelling for his pleasure, and perhaps with some vague idea -of improvement. Mr. Bonamy, who had received him so cordially, and who -had been pleased to be under an obligation to a young fellow of -attractive appearance and pleasant manners, was more cast down by this -intimation than might have been thought possible. Not a young squire: -nobody in particular: a penniless youth seeking employment. Such -visitors were not rare, but they seldom penetrated into the -carefully-guarded interior of the Vice-Consul’s house. - -Harry felt very much abashed. He was sensible of the downfall. How he -longed to produce the glories of the Joscelyns, and convince his hearer -that, if he was humble now, his family had once sat with princes! -Perhaps Mr. Bonamy might not have been so impressed by these ancestors -as Harry thought; but as it was they looked at each other blankly, -mutually feeling that a great fall had taken place. Harry smiled in -that rigid way which is popularly called smiling at the wrong side of -the face. - -“Yes,” he said, “employment. I don’t know that I am very good for -anything: but I have some little acquaintance with--business.” - -This was worse and worse. Had he been possessed of a knowledge of law -business, or military drill, or anything likely to be of no real use to -him, the situation might have improved. But business! book-keeping, and -that sort of thing! no doubt he was a mere clerk after all. - -“You have recommendations, I suppose, from your last employers,” Mr. -Bonamy said, coldly. “I shall be glad if I can be of any use, but----” - -“To tell the truth,” said Harry--he was seized with an outburst of -frankness, feeling a kind of desperation seize him at sight of this cold -withdrawal of the sudden friendship which had made him so happy for the -moment--“to tell the truth I have no recommendations. If anyone will be -kind to me they must take me at my own word. All I have got to say for -myself is that I have quarrelled with my family. I cannot enter into the -question now. I have done it, and that is all I can say; and here I am, -and I must get employment. I am not going to push myself into your -acquaintance, Sir. It was an accident, nothing more than an accident; -and probably you thought me a person of more importance----” - -“Importance or not has nothing to do with it,” said the Vice-Consul; and -again his countenance softened. A young man who has quarrelled with his -family is no doubt a person to be lectured and reproved, and brought -back to a sense of duty, but all the same he is quite different from a -commonplace clerk seeking a situation. Harry did not intend to throw any -halo of distinction over his own humble person, but he did it unawares. -Mr. Bonamy’s countenance gradually cleared. “My dear young fellow,” he -said, “I daresay you are impulsive and hot-headed, like so many other -young men. As being under obligations to you, I may allow myself to give -you good advice. No advantage ever springs from family quarrels. My -advice to you is, make it up.” - -“Not for anything in the world,” said Harry, hotly. “I have been -treated--I can’t say how I have been treated. I will neither make it up, -nor will I go near them, or have any communication with them, till I am -altogether independent of them, and have worked out a position for -myself!” - -“You must not be so violent,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, let me -act the part of a real friend. Let me write.” - -“Never!” said Harry, getting up to his feet. “I am very sorry, Sir, to -have troubled you with my affairs.” - -“That is nonsense,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Sit down, sit down, and let us -talk it over. You have been hot-headed, I don’t doubt. What is it now? -tell me. Some foolish falling in love. You must want to marry somebody -they don’t approve.” - -Harry smiled in spite of himself. “I am no more in love than you are, -Sir,” he said. - -“That might be a dangerous affirmation,” said the Vice-Consul, shaking -his head, with a smile which was somewhat melancholy; “but I understand -what you mean. Then was it money? You have been foolish and got into -debt?” - -“It was a little about money; but not because I had got into debt--and -that was the least of it,” Harry said. “You must pardon me, Sir; but -indeed I cannot tell you: it is a complicated business; and I can’t -depart from what I have said. I will never go home, never make it up -till I have made my own fortune. But if you will believe me,” he said -earnestly, with a flush of hot colour, “the fault was not mine. I have -nothing to conceal on my side.” - -“Then why conceal it?” said the Vice-Consul. “I cannot act for you -unless I have full information; but if you will trust me with your -story----” - -“I would trust you sooner than anyone I know; but I have promised that I -will never say a word on the subject,” said Harry, with all the -obstinacy of all the Joscelyns in his face, “until--I am independent, as -I have said.” He rose up a second time, all flushed and excited. “I am -going to try my luck at Leghorn,” he said. “I am much obliged to you, -Sir, for your kindness. I have felt myself again since I have been here; -but now I will not trouble you any more.” He held out his hand. He was a -handsome young fellow, tall and strong, with the sunburnt countenance -and well-developed limbs, and curling, fair locks, which are everywhere -identified with a young Englishman. He was not at all like a mere clerk -in an office; he was like a son of the fields and woods, one of those -whose training has been of the kind most prized and appreciated by all -Englishmen--an open-air youth; a rider, rower, swimmer, -cricketer--brought up in that way which involves leisure and space, and -all the appliances of country-life. Mr. Bonamy saw all this in Harry’s -vigorous form and movements. He felt sure that he could not be a nobody. -And after all, except that of being a nobody, there is in youth no -unpardonable sin. - -“Don’t be in such a hurry. Sit down again, the office does not open for -another half-hour: and let me hear what there is to be done for you,” he -said. - -This was a question more embarrassing than the Vice-Consul supposed, for -after all there did not seem much that Harry could do. He confessed that -he had almost forgotten what he knew at school, and he had never learned -any modern languages, and could speak no tongue but his own. He had a -little experience in business, he said; but this was the only knowledge -he could lay claim to. The Vice-Counsel did not know what to make of -him; but as he had started with the distinct hypothesis that Harry was a -squire’s son, it was not very difficult to fit in the facts to his -foregone conclusion. Many a young gentleman forgot all his school -learning by the time he was twenty. The difficult thing was that -knowledge of business which at first Harry had been strongly disposed to -put forward as the only faculty which he knew himself to be possessed -of. How had he acquired that? Mr. Bonamy ended by deciding that he must -have quarrelled with his family some time before, and that his -acquaintance with business had been the fruit of some attempt made in -England to maintain himself before he came here. Thus, without any -intention on Harry’s part, he managed to deceive his first influential -friend. He neither meant to do it, nor was he aware he had done it; but -still this was how things fell out. The conclusion of the interview was -that Mr. Bonamy engaged Harry to come back to him next day, when he -would have thought the whole matter over, and know what to say. They -parted with great friendship and cordiality, Mr. Bonamy having entirely -come round again to his own theory in respect to the young man who had -been so serviceable to his daughter. Everything seemed to prove this, -Harry’s very ignorance among the rest. “In these days every poor lad is -more or less educated; a gentleman’s son, who has something else to look -to than competitive examination, he is the only one that escapes that -sort of thing,” the Vice-Consul wisely said. Harry, on his part, went -off to his hotel with greatly exhilarated feelings. He had done nothing, -he said to himself, but make friends since ever he came to Leghorn. To -be sure in the light of the Vice-Consul’s friendship he felt that Paolo -was (as he had always felt) somewhat beneath his pretensions. But still -the poor fellow had been very kind. As he came out by the private door -of the Consul’s house, he saw Paolo at a little distance waiting till -the public door of the Consulate should be open. He saw Harry and rushed -at him, beckoning violently. - -“Komm ’ere, komm ’ere; this is the place,” he said. “Komm along, I will -introduce you, I will respond for you; now is the time to find the -Vice-Consul amiable. He is always amiable when he has well breakfasted.” -He seized Harry by the arm, and tried to drag him back to the Consulate -with an anxious desire to serve his friend which merited a better -return. Harry shook himself free of the little man with good-natured -impatience. - -“I’ve just come from the Vice-Consul,” he said with dignity, “we’re the -best of friends. I’ve been able to be of use to him, and he is going to -be of use to me. Many thanks to you, Paolo, all the same; but I’ve been -lunching there, and--and I’ve done my business. To-morrow I am to go -again,” Harry said, unconsciously holding his head high. Paolo gazed at -him with eyes and mouth that were like round O’s of wonder. He was much -crestfallen in his honest endeavours to be of service. But he soon -recovered his spirits. - -“Bravo!” he said three times over, each time more satisfied than the -other. Then he rose to a “Bravissimo,” with a smile that lighted up his -olive face. “It would have made me pleasure to be of use to you, Ser -Isaack mio. I would have responded, I would have taken it all upon -me--what you call caution. But you are a true English, like the -Vice-Consul himself, and it is just that you should understand each -other. I am not disappointed--I am happy, very much happy that you have -not any need of me,” little Paolo said, smiling, but with tears in his -eyes. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -PAOLO. - - -Paolo came back from his labours in the evening, very curious to know -all about Harry’s interview with the Consul, and the origin and the -result of the acquaintance between them. But Harry was prudent. He was -prudent without any motive, from personal pride, rather than from any -consideration for the credit of Miss Bonamy, which he did not think to -be in the least involved. The women with whom Harry was acquainted were -not of a kind who would have been afraid to go anywhere in the evening, -and it did not occur to him that the reputation, even of a girl, in -Italy would be jeopardized by such an innocent benevolence as that of -going to visit a sick neighbour at night. Therefore it was simply pride -and English reserve, not any notion of prudence on Rita’s account, that -kept him silent on the subject. Paolo had a very different conception of -the affair. He was very anxious to find out what had been the immediate -effect upon Harry’s mind of the visit to the Consul’s house. - -“There is a--young ladi there,” he said, watching Harry’s face. “You see -perhaps, yes? a young ladi, the daughter of the Signor.” - -“Oh, yes, I saw Miss Bonamy,” Harry said. - -“And you nevare--see her before?” This Paolo asked with a gleam of -mischief in his dark eyes, and the air of a man who knew a great deal -more than he said. - -“Oh yes, I have met her before,” said Harry lightly. “They were quite -old friends. I did not in the least expect to meet people so like old -friends here.” - -Paolo was bewildered by this speech, and did not know what to think. - -“Ah,” he said in a tone of disappointment. “You know them in your -country? what you call at ’ome? But,” he added with a little triumph, -“there you could not meet Signorina Rita, because she is never to go to -England; her mother die in England, her mother was the daughter of an -English and Italian, like me for example; but she die in England when -she go, all young, when the Signorina was a bébé. The Signor Vice-Consul -was mad--Si! mad, there is no other word. It was a long time that it was -thought he die too--but no, he live, he go on living; but the Signorina -Rita never go to England, that is finished, that is fixed, nothing will -change it. It could not be that you meet her there.” - -“Do you know Miss Bonamy very well,” said Harry with a little offence, -“that you call her by her Christian name?” - -“I say Signorina Rita, it is our custom. If she were an old, I should -say Sora Rita; and the Vice-Consul he is Ser Giovanni, that is our -custom. Ser Isaack you, Ser Paolo me--but not for you, amico. When you -say Paul-o, that pleases me,” and Paolo laughed, showing his teeth, -which were very white and even. He added, after a moment, with a sudden -moistening of his brilliant eyes, “But what displeases me, after -becoming amici, as we are, is not to be able to serve you. I picture to -myself that I will do something; not moche, but yet something. I will -stand up and say, ‘I take him upon myself. He is without papers, but I -take him upon myself--me.’ Now I am without use. It is no matter to you -to have Paolo Thomp-sone for your friend. The Vice-Consul is moche -bettare--he is grand personage; he has power, not only the heart, like -me.” - -“But, Paul-o,” said Harry, anxious to comfort him, and half touched, -half amused by his distress, “but for you I should never have gone near -the Vice-Consul: you put it into my head. But for you,” he added, with a -laugh, putting his hand lightly on Paolo’s shoulder, “I think I should -have turned tail altogether, and wandered off I don’t know where.” - -Paolo’s face shone with delight. He would have rushed into Harry’s arms -had that been practicable, and thrown himself upon his breast. But -Harry, laughing, kept his friend at arm’s length. To have kissed, or to -have suffered himself to be kissed by, any man, seemed to him the height -of ridicule. Paolo, baffled in this impulse, sat down and looked at him -with radiant eyes. “Now I know that we are amici,” he said. “Aspetto! -There is still a way I can serve you. I well teach you to speak the -Italian. You shall know it so well that they shall say, Ecco un -Italiano. Me, I have been to school in Sienna. I know the real -Toscano--the best Italian. We shall begin this moment. That pleases to -you, Ser Isaack?” asked Paolo, tenderly, looking with humble and -deprecating eagerness into his face. - -“You must learn to speak English better,” Harry said, with some -condescension. “I told you before you must not not say an English, but -an Englishman, and to say an old is nonsense--it should be an old woman, -or an old man, whichever it may be.” - -“Yes, yes,” cried Paolo, “that is alright, that is understood. You -correct me when I say what is not just, and I teach you.” - -“Come out now for a walk,” Harry said. - -Paolo jumped up alert and delighted. It is true that it glanced across -the mind of the young Englishman that perhaps it was beneath the dignity -of a man who was a friend of the Vice-Consul’s, and thus, as it were, a -member of the best society, to walk about with Paolo hanging on to his -arm. But, though Harry was full of youthful conceits and the prejudices -of an ignorant Englishman, he yet had a heart in his capacious bosom, -and Paolo’s devotion had been so great as to touch that heart. He said -to himself, with a little effusion, that he never would turn his back -upon a little fellow who had been so anxious to help him. It might be -that it was presumption on the part of the little fellow to think -himself capable of serving Harry, but still it was well meant, and his -undisguised admiration showed a most just and well-judging spirit. -Nothing, he said to himself, would induce him to turn his back upon -Paolo, his first friend. Antonio had given his whole attention to the -two during the course of dinner. He had loitered behind them when he was -not actively pressing upon them all the choicest morsels, to the despair -of various less interesting guests who could not catch his eye, and who -shouted and stamped in vain. He kept shifting from one foot to another -in the restlessness of pure pleasure as he caught now and then a word of -the conversation between them, and rubbed his hands with delight in the -consciousness of being able to understand it. Now and then he would -punch a fat Italian, with whom he was familiar, in the shoulder, and -call his attention. “Ecco il giovane Inglese,” he would say, though -Harry was doing nothing more important than eating his dinner. Antonio -had got his five francs for a very short day, for naturally the time -passed in the Consul’s had given him no trouble except that of waiting, -and what was still more to the purpose than the five francs was the -importance of having such a witness to his power of English-speaking as -this new guest, who could arrange nothing for himself without his -(Antonio’s) help. He disregarded even the call of the chief butler, so -absorbed was he in his favourite stranger. - -“Do you wish the young Inglese to starve,” he asked, indignantly, in his -native language, “when you know the Inglesi are the best customers the -padrone has, and always send millions more? Do you propose to yourself -that he should have nothing to eat, this young one that is no doubt made -of gold; and how can he have anything to eat if I am not there to serve -him?” - -Thus he kept behind Harry’s chair with a countenance full of delighted -interest. Now and then he would put in a word. “Ze signori will do much -better to go to ze opera to-night,” he said. “Zey will hear La Catalina, -who is ze first in Italy. It is ze ‘Barbiere,’ Ser Paolo, which gives -itself to-night.” - -Paolo looked up appealingly into his friend’s face, but Harry brushed -the suggestion away with a true British argument. “Oh, for heaven’s -sake,” he cried, “don’t let us go and box ourselves up in a hot theatre -on such a night.” - -Paolo sighed, but obeyed. He repeated the sentiment in a superior tone -to Antonio, who was anxiously serving them with Cigare Scelte, arranged -in different kinds upon a wooden tray. “A hot theatre, Antonio mio! one -does not go there in a so warm evening. That goes well with the winter, -when it is cold; but in summer, we young have need of moche air and the -great world to keep us comfort-able. When you know more of real English -you will learn what they love.” - -Antonio accepted this decision of his superiors with much respect, and -laid it up in his memory, to be produced on his own account when it -might accord with his pretensions as an Anglomane and person of high -sentiment to produce it. But in the meantime he could not but launch a -little criticism to the others who overheard this dignified rebuke. -“That little Paolino,” he said, as they went out, “to give himself the -air of a rich Inglese! He is neither one thing nor another. He is no -more than an abozzo--a sketch of an Inglese,” Antonio cried. He had been -in an artist’s studio in his day. “Me, I understand them, al fondo,” he -added, beating his breast. - -Little Paolo had no notion that he was being called an abozzo. He -sallied forth, lighting his cigar, thrusting his arm through Harry’s -with the greatest delight and pride. - -Next day, at the hour appointed, Harry presented himself at the -Vice-Consul’s office, and was received with the same cordiality. Mr. -Bonamy had “made inquiries,” but, as nobody in Leghorn knew anything -about Harry, there was not much information to be procured. Neither did -the captain of the steamer in which he had arrived know anything about -him except that he was a passenger in the second cabin; although he -looked quite superior to the second cabin. “I set him down as somebody’s -son in disgrace with his family,” the captain said. This chimed in -sufficiently well with Mr. Bonamy’s observations. He met Harry after the -first consultation with a grave face. “You know I know nothing about -you, Mr. Oliver,” he said, “except--and that is not much--what you have -chosen to tell me.” - -“That is quite true, Sir,” said Harry, growing serious too, and feeling -his heart sink, “and I have no right to expect you to take my word even -for that.” - -“Therefore,” said the Vice-Consul, “(for you should never interrupt a -man in the middle of a sentence), I have the more claim upon you to -treat me in an honourable way. If you had come with all your papers, as -they say in this country, I should not have had the same right to put -you on parole, as it were. If you know no reason why I shouldn’t take -you into my office, and trust you with the Queen’s affairs, I mean to do -so. But if there is anything that would make you a discredit to Her -Majesty’s Service----” - -“There is nothing, Sir,” said Harry, standing up. His face flushed, his -nostril dilated, an impulse of almost fierce self-justification came -upon him; but fortunately for him he was not used to defending himself, -and he could not say another word. - -“Then that is enough,” said the Vice-Consul. “I take you on your own -parole.” - -They were both silent for a minute or two after. It was not like a -common engagement. Harry’s heart was in his throat. What with surprise -at this extraordinary good fortune, and the emotion called forth by a -confidence in him which he could not help feeling to be as -extraordinary, he was quite beyond his own control. If he had said -anything he would have “made a fool of himself,” so he said nothing, but -sat still, almost disposed, like Paolo, to be tearful, which was the -most dreadful catastrophe he could think of. The good Vice-Consul was a -little affected too. - -“But I don’t know a word of the language,” at last Harry said. - -“We have more to do with Englishmen than Italians,” said Mr. Bonamy. -“Perhaps the fellow whom you knocked down ‘quietly,’ as you told me, may -come and make his complaint to you. Your knocking a man down quietly was -the thing that tickled me. I wonder what was his opinion of it. You must -learn the language of course, and some other things quite as important. -You must find out all about the harbour by-laws and dues, and all that -affects the shipping. These are things we have a great deal to do with. -You must master them, that is the most important thing; and when you -have been here for a little while you will find out other points. Do you -know anyone from whom you can get lessons? But I suppose, as a matter of -fact, you don’t know anyone here.” - -Here Harry, finding his power of speech, told him of Paolo, with that -half laugh of commentary which implies a certain slight of the friend to -whom he had so much reason to be grateful. He felt that it was mean, but -he could not help it. How could he help implying a laugh at the droll -little person who held by him so faithfully, yet was so entirely out of -Harry’s way? However, the Vice-Consul took Paolo quite seriously. He -nodded his head with approval. “Nobody better--nobody better,” he said. -“I see you laugh at him; but he is as sound as a bell, that little -fellow, and always rings true. That he is not quite your equal,” Mr. -Bonamy added, “does not matter a bit in the circumstances. I am glad -that you have chanced so fortunately. To get hold by accident of such a -genuine person as Paolo is quite a piece of luck. I rather think you -must be a lucky person,” he added, with a laugh. - -“Since I came to Leghorn,” said Harry, fervently, “nothing could be more -true than that.” - -“Yes, I think you must be lucky,” said the Vice-Consul, “to hit upon a -perfectly honest person as your first acquaintance, then making haste to -get yourself into a row to have so good an excuse for it as my Rita, and -then----” - -“And then,” said Harry, “to meet with such astonishing, such -unlooked-for kindness, to fall on my feet in such a wonderful way.” - -“Well, perhaps,” said Mr. Bonamy, not displeased, “we may say that was -luck too; and one thing, Oliver,” he added quickly, “it will be so much -the better for you that employment in Her Majesty’s Service is a -disgrace to nobody; mind what I say. Of course, in the nature of events, -you and your family will not be at daggers drawn for ever; and when you -condescend to go back, or they find you out, and come to look for -you----” - -“Neither, neither will happen,” cried Harry, shaking his head. - -“We shall see; but if that day comes, there is nothing for them to find -fault with. A Consulate is not like a merchant’s office; anybody may -serve Her Majesty. None of us, I hope, are too good for that.” - -“I assure you, Sir----” Harry cried, hastily. - -“No, no, you need not assure me. I don’t want to know anything; unless, -indeed, your heart should be opened to tell me _everything_, which I -should really be glad of. Well,” he said, “come to-morrow morning and -begin. Your friend, Paolo, will tell you about the hours: and I hope, -Oliver, we shall always remain the best of friends,” the Vice-Consul -added, rising and holding out his hand. “I hope nothing will happen to -make me entertain a less opinion of you than I do now; that’s -understood. You shall have a card for Rita’s evening at-home, and I hope -you’ll come and see us occasionally in a friendly way. Let us say next -Sunday, perhaps? Sunday’s a dreary day for a young man by himself. Come -after church, and stay for the after noon; for the present, goodbye.” - -Harry took his hat and made his best bow. He was really quite tremulous -with excitement, surprise, and pleasure. To be so speedily and so easily -established was more good fortune than he could realize. When he was at -the door Mr. Bonamy called him back. - -“Oliver!” he cried, “one moment; I would not knock any more men down if -I were you; however quietly it is done, it is a little risky, and Her -Majesty’s Service, you know----” - -“You needn’t fear, Sir; that’s what Paul-o has been preaching to me all -the time,” Harry said. - -Upon which the Vice-Consul laughed benignly. - -“Paul-o, as you call him, is as good an adviser as you could have,” he -said. - -“What should I call him but Paul-o?” Harry said to himself; and he went -off with his head in the air. Lucky! indeed he had been lucky; only the -third day since his arrival and he had a situation and a sort of a home -and friends; to make up to him for all the evil that had happened to him -before, providence was taking special care of him now. Somehow this made -Harry think of his mother, of whom, hitherto, his thoughts had been -scarcely more kind than towards the others concerned; a little moisture -crept unawares to his eyes. “She’ll have been praying,” he said to -himself; and suddenly he seemed to see her, as he had seen her so often, -wringing her thin worn hands, her lips trembling with words that were -inaudible. He thought--it would be hard to trace the exact connection of -ideas, but there was one--that he would go in to the first church in -which there seemed to be service going on, on his way back to the inn. -It would not have occurred to him to go into a church where there was no -service, but when he heard the tinkle of a bell, and saw one or two -people creeping up and down the broad stone steps, he went in, though -with a little opposition in his mind, as well as a certain craving for -sympathy and utterance. But when he went in, Harry saw no signs of -public worship. The tinkle of the bell was coming from an altar in a -side chapel, where a great many candles were burning. In the body of the -church some people were seated quietly, others kneeling on the low -rush-bottomed chairs. He stood and gazed for a little with mingled -feelings, with a great opposition in his mind to the Papist ritual and -ceremonies (of which he saw nothing, and which, to tell the truth, he -had never seen, and knew nothing whatever about); and disapproval of the -people who were in the church for, as he thought, no purpose--mingled -with a curious sense of the grateful calm and quietness and seclusion of -the place, the serene coolness and breadth of its lofty roofs and silent -space. This stole upon him, he could not tell how. He would not have -knelt down, as the few people about were doing, to save his life: it -would have seemed to him like the famous bowing down in the house of -Rimmon, for the North was very Protestant in those days, and sympathy -with Rome was very rare. He would not even say a distinct prayer in his -heart, which would have seemed like yielding to temptation. But, as he -stood, there rose in him an unwilling devotion, and the thanks that had -been in his mind were perhaps not the less given that they were -arbitrarily refused utterance. For Harry’s prejudices were a part of his -training, not anything that originated in himself. When he went away the -moisture came again into the corners of his eyes. His mother was as -Protestant, more Protestant, than himself. She would have thought it -wrong to go into “a Catholic chapel.” She would scarcely have been able -to believe in the existence of a country not given over to all evil, in -which a Popish place of worship was not a Catholic chapel, but an -established church. Oh, the poor people! what benighted darkness they -must be in! she would have said, in her ignorance. But somehow, Harry -could not have told how, he felt as if he had approached his mother in -that foreign place. The silent church, with the silent people in it -praying, made him think of her as he had seen her, with her lips moving -and her hands clasped together. Often again he stole in for a moment to -renew that sentiment, which was so soft and pathetic. He held out -against his mother all the time obstinately, though he knew he was -condemning her to great suffering--and he entirely disapproved of the -church; but for all that the two had some subtle resemblance, a union -of two things he was hostile to, which went to his heart. - -Paolo came to dinner in great triumph. He had placed a flower in his -button-hole and put on a brilliant new tie in honour of the great event, -and fairly threw himself upon his amico and kissed him with enthusiasm -before Harry could get out of this extremely embarrassing position. -Never young girl blushed more uncomfortably than the young man did as he -drew himself out of his enthusiastic friend’s embrace. - -“What have I done to you that you make no response?” Paolo said, almost -weeping over this repulse. - -“Hold your tongue, for goodness’ sake! Men don’t kiss each other in -England. Whatever you do, don’t be ridiculous,” Harry cried. - -Poor little Paolo was wounded to the heart. - -“I am an English myself,” he said. “Yes, yes, an English_man_, if you -will; I have not the courage to remember. I am a true English-man; but -it is cruel all the same. Should I then take no notice? when it is the -wish most dear of my heart that will be fulfilled? Always I have said to -myself--if the Santissima Virgin would send a real English-man, not one -that is what you call ’alf-and-’alf, like me. And when it is done, and -my amico whom I have chosen turns out to be he whom I have so much -desired, am not I to show a little that I am glad? I am ’appy that I am -an Italian,” said Paolo, with indignation, “if it is so.” - -And there was a little suspension of intercourse between them. But this -did not last; Paolo was too good-humoured and too tender-hearted to -stand out; he begged his friend’s pardon in less than five minutes. -Harry, whose mind moved more slowly, had not had time to realize that he -had been unkind when this reversal of the position took place. Paolo did -all but weep in his penitence. - -“I am good-for-nothing,” he said, “I am without sentiment, I have no -delicacy nor education. Who can say why you were so magnanimous as to -choose me, me! for your amico? and when you show the true dignity of an -English, me I am so without good-breeding, so common, so devoid of -sentiment, that I become angry! but if you will only forgive me, forgive -me this once----!” - -“It is I who am a brute,” said Harry, penitent in his turn. But Paolo -protested with tears in his eyes, and would have thrown himself at his -friend’s feet, or on his neck again, in the excitement of the -reconciliation. And though he was usually very thrifty, calculating -every centissimo, he ordered a bottle of _champagne frappé_ to celebrate -the day. Nothing would prevail upon him to countermand this order. - -“It is a festa,” cried the little man, “and it is a reparation: and we -will drink to our eternal friendship.” Paolo did not know that he was -guilty of plagiarism; he was heroically in earnest, and drank his wine, -which Antonio brought with great pride and many grins, triumphantly in -its pail, setting it on the table before them, and watching its -consumption with the most amiable interest. “And here is for a -bicchierino,” Paolo said, bestowing, a small coin upon Antonio with much -grandeur, “drink thou also the health of Ser Isaack, who is my amico,” -and he held out his foaming glass to touch that of his friend. - -Paolo’s head was turned altogether by these unusual potations; and -Harry’s first office was to see his friend safe home and deliver him -from all the dangers of the streets, on this too triumphant night. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -THE OFFICE. - - -Harry entered upon his work next day, and was in a few hours so entirely -bewildered by the novel character of the questions addressed to him, and -the information he was supposed to possess, that he went to the -Vice-Consul in the evening in dismay. “I don’t know a thing,” he said; -“I never knew before what an ignorant beast I was. It would only be -taking advantage of you if I were to stay.” - -This hasty alarm and anxious honesty of purpose made Mr. Bonamy more and -more certain that he had judged rightly. “Don’t give in in such a -hurry,” he said, “you can’t be expected to know things of that sort -without learning. They are not part of a gentleman’s education. You -must get your friend Paolo to take you in hand. He is a perfect mine of -information. I have often to refer to him myself. Though he is not in a -very high position, he knows more about these special matters than all -the rest of us put together.” - -And thus balm was diffused over Harry’s sore spirit. But he could not -help asking himself why the inequalities and injustices of this world -should be so marked in respect to Paolo. Why should he not be in a very -high position so far as the Vice-Consul’s office was concerned? He, -Harry, who was an ignoramus and knew nothing, was to have higher pay and -far more consideration than the other, who was a mine of knowledge. It -was true that Harry’s personal sense of superiority to Paolo was noways -weakened--but yet he felt the injustice. He had not been used to enter -into such questions, yet he could not but see that to bolster up the -ignorance of a well-looking Englishman, by the knowledge of a little -oddity of an Italian was somewhat hard so far as the Italian was -concerned. It was, accordingly, with a deprecating tone that he spoke to -Paolo at dinner. It even moved him to a little insincerity. What he had -said to the Vice-Consul in all good faith, and much dismay, he repeated -to Paolo, not meaning it at all. “I don’t know a thing,” he said, “not -one question could I answer. I never knew I was so ignorant. It is very -nice to be settled and have Mr. Bonamy for my chief, and you, Paolo, to -help me through: but a fellow must be honest--and when the beggars come -and ask me things, I can’t go on pretending to know.” - -“You shall not pretend to know, Isaack mio,” cried Paolo, with a beaming -countenance. “Now is just come the moment which I was looking for, which -show that it is good to have a friend. How much does it matter whether -it is you that have it or I that have it? Listen then to me. You think -Paolo Thomp-sone a little nobody, and it is true; but listen--listen to -me. It is not to talk big or to brag that is necessary. _I_ know.” - -“I am sure of that, Paolo,” said Harry, languidly, and with the look of -dejection which was half acting, though he did not intend it. “The -Vice-Consul said so. He told me you were a mine of knowledge. But why -should I pick your brains? Why should I mount up upon you and stand upon -your shoulders, and get all the credit of it? That is not just any more -than the other. I oughtn’t to take everything from you.” - -Paolo could scarcely keep still upon his chair in his delight and -satisfaction. His face glowed and shone with happiness. “Are not you my -friend?” he cried; “all that which is to Paolo is to you, Ser Isaack. It -is my pride. We will begin to-night. It is better than to go out to the -Café to sit and sip Rosolio--to be idle like the others--moche bettare. -You shall come to my room, or I will go to yours--and then the books, -and to write the exercises, and to stoody. Yes, yes--I know. I have been -here all my life--I know moche, almost everything. Then we commence -to-night.” - -“But, Paolo, how am I to accept all that from you? A week ago you did -not know me, and now you are going to sacrifice all your spare time and -your pleasure to me; that is not just, as you say. You must let me at -least,” said Harry, faltering, and, with a glimmering insight which was -quite new to him, watching his friend’s countenance, “you must let me at -least--consider you as--my master, you know; and we must settle--now -don’t be angry--a price.” - -Paolo did not say a word; he turned his face away from his friend and -pretended to go on eating his dinner. There was no need for words to -show how deeply wounded he was. He turned his shoulder to Harry, and -called the smiling Antonio to the other side. - -“Take it away! take it away!” he said in English, “it choke me!” and he -pushed his plate from him. - -“Oh! Signor Paolo! Pertanto é buonissimo; don’t cry, Ser Paolo,” cried -the anxious waiter. “These Inglesi, they are brutes; they have no -sentiment; they give pain without knowing it. Pertanto, you must not -weep.” - -“That imports me nothing,” said Paolo, feebly. “It is again an illusion, -my good Antonio; but I cannot weep much, for it is too deep.” - -“What are you two talking about? when you know I don’t understand your -confounded Italian!” cried Harry, at his wit’s end. “What’s the matter? -what have I done now? you will drive a poor beggar out of his senses! -Good Lord! you’re not a woman, that you should cry for what a fellow -says. I don’t know what you mean by your sentiment and all that; I want -to be honest, and not to take advantage of a good hearted duffer because -he is my friend.” - -Paolo turned round with the tears still in his eyes. - -“You call me duffere,” he said quickly; “beggare I understand, but -duffere I never heard.” - -“It means,” said Harry, drawing on his imagination, “the best-hearted, -silly kind fellow in the world, always going out of his way to help -somebody, holding out his hand to a suspicious beast the moment he lands -in a strange place, never giving him up though he behaves like a brute, -giving everything like an idiot, but flaring up if you want to give him -anything in return.” - -“Not that, not that,” said Paolo, laying his hand upon his friend’s arm. -“I give you my lofe, and I wait for your lofe in return. If there is a -thing you want I take it upon myself. Siamo amici! is there any more to -say? I know nothing; all is in that. If it is true that I am your amico, -then you are a beggare, you are a beast, you are all bad,” said Paolo, -with flashing eyes, “to be so base as to offer to pay me--money. Ah! -che! che! there is nothing too bad, nothing too dreadful to say. Inglese -brutale! false amico----!” Here he stopped all at once, and gazed -piteously into Harry’s face. “Forgive me, forgive me, my friend!” he -cried. - -This all happened at dinner, at the _table-d’hôte_, which fortunately -was not very full that day. There was nobody sitting opposite, which was -a great relief to Harry’s mind; but he could see from the end of the -table the cynical Englishman, who had never taken any notice of him, -giving an amused glance now and then at the group of friends--Paolo -shedding tears into his plate, Antonio, with a face full of sympathy, -tenderly removing it, essaying to console the sufferer. This was a -greater trial to Harry’s temper than even the sentiment of Paolo. He -shot an answering glance of defiance at his countryman, who had never so -much as given the help of a kind word to the stranger. - -“Let’s say no more about it, Paolo,” he said, “you and I are quite -different, you know. I daresay I am a brutal Englishman, but I can’t -help it. That’s our nature. We don’t think so much of a little thing as -you do, and we abhor making a fuss. Perhaps you don’t know what that -means?” - -“I will nevare make a fuss more. I will learn to be a duffere, and do as -you do,” said Paolo, in all the tenderness of reconciliation. - -Harry looked at him something as Joan looked at his mother. He had too -good a heart to despise his little friend, and he did not understand -him; but this sentiment was extremely inconvenient and very -troublesome--on that point there could be no doubt. - -However, later in the evening, Paolo, who had inherited all the Italian -thrift, gave his friend some very sensible advice. Instead of going to -the Café, they went to Paolo’s _appartamento_, which was on the highest -floor of a high house in one of the narrow streets. Though he called it -an _appartamento_ it was a single room, with an odd little closet in the -shape of a kitchen, and offices attached to it. The room itself was -somewhat low in the roof, being so high up, but had three or four -windows, and a little balcony suspended over the street, into which it -made Harry dizzy to look down as into an Alpine ravine. The floor was of -tiles, the walls white, with a pattern in distemper, very graceful and -flowing, round the top and bottom. The bed was a very tiny and bare -article, put away in a corner. In another corner stood a table. A few -chairs, and an old, very straight-backed settee, with two arms, in old -gilding and brocade, stood against the wall. There was a tall, brass -_lucerna_, the lamp common throughout Italy, with its little bundle of -snuffers and extinguisher and scissors to trim the wick, hanging from it -by a chain, and a few books on a shelf. Nothing could be more bare. -There was a small rug by the bedside, but no other covering for the bare -area of tiles which was the chief feature in the room. Paolo had a -little picture of the Madonna, a bad copy of that which is called the -Madonna del Granduca, and a basin for holy water over his bed, which was -covered with a red and blue cotton coverlet. Everything about showed the -same bareness and absence both of comfort and ornament. But Paolo -regarded his _appartamento_ with eyes full of pleasure. He saw nothing -wanting in it. It housed him sufficiently of nights, and was cool and -pleasant in the summer mornings, when he rose, as most Italians do, in -the early daylight, to get through all the private work he might happen -to have. He looked round upon it with a gentle complaisance. Some old -prints, and one or two copies of famous pictures, hung on the walls. In -the best light was an old painting of a gloomy and uncertain aspect, -which Paolo believed to be a Margheritone. It might have been anything. -He was very proud of it. “Ecco!” he said, when they went in, “my old -master. He is a little dark, but when you study him you will find much -in him. He is of the _trecento_--very early--very early. The painter -have seen the blessed father, San Francesco; that indicates how old it -must be.” - -Harry did not make any reply to this. For his part he liked things -better for being new. The dark old picture had no charm for him at all, -and he thought the _appartamento_ rather worse as being larger than his -own little room at the hotel, which had hitherto seemed to him the last -example of bareness and dreariness. “A horrid little hole,” more adapted -for a dog than a man. - -“I’ll tell you one other thing,” said Paolo, taking him affectionately -by the shoulders before they sat down by the table; “if you will make -economies, and do well, Isaack mio, you will not live always in the -hotel. Me I dine there; it is the best thing to do; but live all the -time--oh no! It is only for Englishmen to be so extravagant like that.” - -“That is what I have been thinking,” said Harry, “if I could get some -nice rooms. You don’t understand about Englishmen. Dining every day at -an hotel is a thing nobody would think of in England. We have our dinner -at home, or, if the landlady is not a good cook, then perhaps--But for -my part I always preferred a beefsteak at home, even if it were not the -most perfect cookery in the world. Dining at an hotel is a thing no one -thinks of, except on a great occasion perhaps.” - -Paolo opened his eyes in surprise. “It is well,” he said, “you are more -prudent when you are in your own country. This is what you must do, -Isaack, amico. You will first find an _appartamento_. It is not always -that one is so fortunate as me. This is perfect--non é vero? It is all -one could want. A bed--ecco! a table, the sof-fa that has come from a -palazzo, even a little tabouret for the feet--everything. And then the -balcone! When it makes warm in the summer, in July and Agosto, it is, -oh! fresco, freschissimo so fresh and cool here! The first thing is an -_appartamento_. But in every way I am too fortunate. As soon I dress in -the morning, there is a caffè in face--you can see it if you look -down--where I can have my coffee in a moment. No waiting as when you go -to a distance, but at the moment. They are about to send us now the -coffee, amico, to clear our head. You will see how good it is. Then when -the time come for the other breakfast--what you call lunch--there is a -restaurant near the bureau. You have two very good dish, a dolce, and -dessert; and very little to pay. I will lead you to-morrow to that -place. And at last the dinner at the Leone. Figure to yourself so much -comfort all in one day! And you see the journals for nothing, and hear -what all the people say.” - -“Bless us all,” said Harry, “in that way you are never at home.” - -“At ’ome! I am at ’ome everywere,” the little Italian said; “all is -friends; whatever goes on, everyone makes part of it to me. And when all -is over you mount in your _appartamento_, you are tranquil, you light -your lamp, you fume slowly your cigar on the balcone, you go to bed. And -you make economies--great economies. Me even, that have not moche -appointment, I become a little rich, what you call at my ease. And you, -who will have moche more as me----” - -“Why should I? You are a great deal more use than I am,” Harry said. - -Paolo shook his head with a cheerful yet shrewd acceptance of the -position. “Si, I am of more use,” he said. “I am good for something; -you, caro, not good for moche yet. But look at you and look at me. That -expliques itself. That is the world’s way--what you call the world’s -way. Come; the first thing is an _appartamento_. You think, perhaps, it -is too high up here? But smell the good air,” cried Paolo; “that is of -itself refreshing--and the view! You will pay more scudi at the Leone in -a week than for a month here. Ecco! here is the coffee, and though it is -not yet quite dark, that amiable garzone, see, he has brought us a -lamp.” - -Then there entered, with a knock at the door, the man from the caffè -opposite, holding upon the points of three fingers a tray containing two -heavy cups of white porcelain and the small coffee-pot, flanked by a -plate of cakes, which Paolo’s hospitality had added in honour of his -friend. The waiter swung the lighted lamp in the other hand, holding it -by the handle at the top, and in this way had come up five flights of -stairs without spilling a drop of the coffee or jeopardizing the cups. -He put the lamp on the table with a “Felicissima notte, Signori,” -looking upon the two young men with looks as amiable as his wish. And, -indeed, the wish has more reason in it at the beginning of the evening -than at the end. Paolo was great as a host. He poured out his black -coffee as if it had been the richest of drinks, and pressed upon Harry -the odd little collection of cakes of every possible and impossible -flavour. Some of them were excellent, but Harry thought he despised -these innocent dainties. And he was not very fond of the black coffee: -how much better he would have liked an English cup of tea! As he sat -turning over the books which Paolo placed before him, and listened to -his friend’s explanations, gulping, with a great effort not to make a -wry face, occasional mouthfuls of coffee, there seemed to flit before -him a vision of his mother’s parlour--the fragrant tea, the rich fresh -cream, and herself, with that pale face which had not always seemed to -him so attractive as it did now. Once, to tell the truth, Harry had -thought his mother and sister heavy company, and in his heart had said -that nothing could be more dull than the long evening in the parlour at -home. Now that he was up here so near the sky in Paolo’s _appartamento_, -his ideas were different. The bare tiles underfoot, the wide, vacant -space, with the little bed in the corner, the dull old Margheritone -staring him in the face, with a pair of round eyes looking out from its -blackness--and all those knotty questions about the harbour dues to -occupy him, made as great a contrast as could be conceived to the old -curtains and carpets, and familiar walls, and cheerful fire, and the -grey sweep of landscape showing from the windows, stretching far into -the horizon. But he himself. Harry was very much the same, and in the -one place as in the other he was unsatisfied. He thought it had been his -surroundings that were to blame in the first instance, but now, after -the excitement of all this new beginning, and the novelty of his new -friends, and the new place, so unlike anything he had seen before, -Paolo’s _appartamento_, and the thought of settling down in another -such, brought him back, with a sort of mental gasp, to himself. Was that -all that was to come of it? It was scarcely worth while renouncing his -name and his family, and all his past, in order to settle down in a room -upon the fifth floor, among the chimneypots, at Leghorn. While he was -studying the dock regulations and harbour laws, his mind was busy about -this other perplexing question. An _appartemento_! Was he never, he -wondered, with an impatience that was almost comic in the humiliation -and depression it caused him, to have a sitting-room again? never to get -a meal save in public, in the grim _sala_ of the Leone, or in a gaudy -restaurant with little marble tables; never even a cup of tea to himself -in his own place, as an Englishman loves to have it; never to have a -carpet under his feet, but cold tiles; and nothing in the world that -looked like home? He kept all this to himself, and tried hard to grasp -at the laws and regulations about the free port of Leghorn, and its -etiquettes and its dues; but his inner soul was crossed all the time by -impulses of ill-humour and disappointment which he could with difficulty -restrain. It is always difficult, after a period of agitation and -excitement, to settle down again and resume a steady routine; and Harry -could not think of this kind of settling with anything but annoyance. -The inn was not any better. His little sleeping-room there was not so -good as Paolo’s. In the _sala_ there was always a sense of dinner -combined with cigars; and in the other parts of the establishment the -smell was of cigars impregnated with soup and divers odours of the -kitchen. And these were the only places where he, with his English -habits, had a chance of sitting down! He sighed for his little parlour, -with its Kidderminster carpet, and red moreen curtains, at Liverpool. It -was a palace to the _appartamento_, or anything that seemed possible -here. - -They sat so late over their books that Paolo did not as usual insist -upon accompanying Harry to the inn door. Paolo, for his part, had spent -a very happy evening. He was learned in those bye-laws which so -mystified Harry, and loved to enlarge upon them, and to impart -information in any shape was a grateful exercise to him. He liked to do -it, even when he was not--which he liked still better--doing a kindness -to a friend; and he was proud of all the possessions which he had -exhibited with such simple pleasure. It did not occur to him that his -home, which he was so happy in, or the simple routine of life which he -had set up for imitation, could fill any heart with dismay. He found -himself perfectly comfortable in it, why should not his amico do the -same? No doubt of the suitableness of this life to one as to another -crossed his simple mind. He crunched the biscuits which Harry disdained, -and drank the black coffee at which Harry made wry faces, and was much -pleased with himself, and very happy to think that he was setting before -his friend the best way to walk in. He was scarcely so pleased with -himself however when he was over-persuaded to allow Harry to go back to -the hotel alone. “No, I will re-conduct you,” he had said at first; but -Harry laughed at the unnecessary ceremony. Paolo stood at the top of the -great black well of a staircase and held the lucerna to light his friend -downstairs, standing patiently with the heavy lamp dangling from his -hand till he had heard the door close at the foot; and then he rushed to -his balcony to watch lest Harry should turn the wrong way, ready to -scream out to him if he did so. Even when he had made sure that his -friend had turned to the right, and not to the left, Paolo still shook -his head. “I should have re-conducted him,” he said to himself. It was -the only drawback to the perfect blessedness of the night. - -It was a glorious night out of doors; the Italian moon was shining with -a warmth and glory unknown to northern skies. Harry tried to think the -moon was as fine in England, but he could not succeed in this; -everything else was a great deal better in England, but there was -something to be said for the climate here, one was forced to -admit--even though one might not admit anything more. Harry walked home -(as he called it by force of nature) with much subdued irritation and -despondency, consequent chiefly on the apparent impossibility of ever -having a sitting-room, or any place it would be pleasant to sit in -again. The inn, though he called it home, was not less obnoxious to him, -and he asked himself, good heavens, was it possible he should never---- -He had got as far as this when another picture suddenly rose up before -him, and in a moment changed all his thoughts. It was of a dim room, -cool and dark in the midst of the sunshine, with a whiteness of floating -curtains about the windows, and tables covered with books, and a white -figure in a corner, close upon the open dark space of a window closed by -green persianis, through which the air was blowing softly. Ah! he said, -drawing a long breath, there was a kind of paradise! That was very -different from the _appartamento_. It was dark in his memory, as it had -been when he had suddenly stepped into it out of the bright day with so -much surprise that he could but dimly recollect the appearance of the -place. He wondered how it would look when the persianis were open, when -the daylight got in, or at night when the lamps were lighted, when the -place was fully inhabited? - -Instinctively, without knowing what he was about, he turned into the -street which led to the Consulate. His heart gave a jump against his -breast when he saw that the persianis were all opened now, and that the -lights in the room made it partially visible from the street. Evidently -there was a party going on, and he felt a little pang of mortification -to think that he had not been asked. There was a sound of music and a -great deal of talk, talk that sounded exhilarating and delightful to -Harry, though he would have felt himself a fish out of water had he been -in the midst of the polyglot conversation that went on in the Consul’s -drawing-room. A white figure was seated near the window, faintly visible -within the white curtains. He wondered if it was _hers_? He screwed his -eyes together as if he had been short-sighted, to try to see a little -better, but this was what he could not make out. The sudden glimpse of -this little bright world from which he was shut out arrested Harry all -at once in his discontented thoughts. Here was something which would -make up for all deficiencies. He stood for a long time under the -windows, trying to hear the voices within, with no eavesdropping -intentions, but only to console himself by the recollection that he had -far more in common with the Vice-Consul’s house and his society than -with Paolo, though he was so good a friend. And then he stood opposite -and watched, seeing figures vaguely glide across the room, figures which -the white curtains, swaying softly in the air, kept indistinct. He could -not distinguish her, he allowed to himself; sometimes he thought he had -traced her, but only to find himself deceived. Some one in the -background was playing the piano softly, though nobody paid much -attention. Harry could not tear himself away from the window. That was -life, he thought to himself; a man who had that house to go home to need -never be dull; and then he remembered, with a glow of warm satisfaction -and pleasure, that on Sunday, no further off, he was to go there. He -turned after this with a resolute step, and went back to the hotel and -his dreary little room, where he sat on his bed, gazing at the two -little lights of the lucerna which had been given to him to light -himself upstairs, for all the house was dark and at rest before he got -back--and thinking of that warm and cheerful scene. The lamp burned on -steadily, the only light in all the big hotel, and Harry sat and gazed -at it unwinking. Sunday afternoon! here was something to look forward -to. And _that_ was a house which was worth calling a home, which was not -an _appartamento_. He thought life must have an altogether different -complexion there. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE BONAMYS. - - -Mr. Bonamy, the Vice-Consul, was a man who ought to have filled a very -different position. He ought to have been Consul-General and a person of -importance. He had been long in the service, and he had done good work, -and there was nothing against him. But there are some people who never -will “get on,” whatever may be the circumstances in their favour, just -as there are some whom all the adverse circumstances in the world will -not keep down. He was rash, as may have been seen by his reception of -Harry, and he was one of those men upon whom experience has no power, -who never learn--who having been deceived twenty times are just as ready -to believe and be imposed upon the twenty-first. His own goodness and -rectitude were such that he had kept his position fairly, and his talent -and fine faculties had not been without acknowledgment; but he had not -“got on.” There was another circumstance too which kept him in his -present position. His history had been briefly told by Paolo, and was -one which everybody knew. Eighteen years before he had married a -beautiful girl, the daughter of an English merchant in Leghorn and his -Italian wife. They had lived together for a year, and the little Rita -had been born, when young Bonamy took his wife “home” with great delight -and pride to exhibit her to his friends. She had scarcely touched -English soil when she fell ill; it was an ungenial season, and the -Italian girl was of a delicate constitution. The young husband, to whose -mind danger or death never presented themselves as possible, always rash -and venturesome, and ready to trust any gleam of sunshine, had been to -blame in exposing her to the severities of the spring changes and the -east winds, and the result was that he who had left Leghorn in the full -zenith of happiness, returned a miserable man, alone, leaving his -treasure in an English grave. For years after he had been so stunned -with his grief that he was capable of little but the routine of -necessary work, and this period of deadly depression occurred just when -there might have been hopes of promotion for him. He did not want any -promotion. When he began to revive with the growth of his little girl, -and to find in her a substitute for the young mother whom he had -scarcely had time to know, it became a settled principle, almost a -superstition in his mind, that Rita must never leave her native soil; -she, at least, should never be exposed to those east winds and chilling -mists of England. It became a part of the training he gave her, a part -of the religion which everybody round was bound to. Whatever happened, -Rita was not to leave Italy; the risks her mother had succumbed to were -never to touch her. His living, his expectations, his life itself, were -nothing in comparison with this. He was not a man of a strong mind, as -may be easily perceived. There was but one thing which was utterly -precious to him, and that was naturally the first thing in his thoughts. -She throve here in the place where she had been born, just as her mother -had done before her; and if she were removed she would die. This made -him accept cheerfully the neglect of his superiors; and he had made -himself many friends in the place he had inhabited so long. The whole -population knew him and his story, and sympathized, with the ready -warmth of the race. It was known even to the dock-labourers, to the -sailors in the port, that the Signorina Rita was never to go out of -Italy. The people were all profoundly interested in her in consequence. -It was a compliment to them, to their genial skies, and the health of -the town, and the excellence of everything Italian, not to say -Livornese, which went to their hearts; and the Vice-Consul and his -daughter found themselves very happy in the place, which he would have -left long ago had he been a more prosperous man. - -This consoled him greatly for not getting on; indeed, he had lost -ambition altogether, and given up all thought of advancement; he was -satisfied with his life such as it was. It was a pleasant life enough, -no press or hurry of business, no excessive responsibility, a friendly -society round him, a number of people looking up to him, a kind of -representative position which pleased his fancy. The shipping and the -sea-captains who occupied so much of his time were not perhaps quite so -delightful, but then there are some drawbacks in every lot. He had a -pleasant house, which he had gradually filled with furniture and -pictures such as might have made a connoisseur’s mouth water, and he had -plenty of leisure time to enjoy the society of his daughter and of his -friends. Unconsciously he had trained Rita to be his constant companion -and confidant. He had not intended so to do; there had been no desire in -him to withdraw her from younger companions, to keep her to himself; but -when an intelligent child is made the companion of a mature mind, which -is yet not too mature, but still capable of something of the -indiscretion of youth, there is a charm in the intercourse which nothing -else can equal. To a girl especially the attraction is great. Rita, -almost before she had given up dolls and baby-houses, had begun to see -the bigger world in glimpses through her father’s eyes. She began to be -aware of a universe full of people, full of humour and meaning, -appearing behind like an inexhaustible background. And if she did not -absolutely find out books by the same means, yet she made the discovery -of most things that were beautiful and important in them. His opinions, -his ideas represented a whole new heaven and new earth to her, before -which the nursery and its childish joys faded away. She had begun to -know what he knew, to give an adoring echo to all his opinions, to -understand his occupations, when other children are still resisting -their first lessons, and resenting the interference of grown-up persons -with all their pleasures. The Vice-Consul confided all his difficulties, -when they arose, to her ears before she was twelve. She knew that the -“F.O.” was sometimes unreasonable, and that the shippers were -troublesome, before she had quite mastered English, which was not her -native tongue. Then there came a further development, when Rita no -longer echoed her father’s opinions, but had ideas of her own. This -followed so quickly upon the first, and added such a delightful variety -and animation to their intercourse, that the Vice-Consul fully believed -she had been a critic in her cradle, and that all her lively views upon -things in general had come to her direct by inspiration from above. - -She was seventeen now, though she looked younger. For five years she had -been everything that a grown-up companion can be, with something besides -that no grown-up companion ever was. They were everything to each other. -She reverenced him, and she laughed at him, and patronized his ideas, -and thought him the first of created beings. Nothing but a child could -so mingle veneration and superiority, the freedom of an equal, the -keenness of a critic, the enthusiasm of adoring love. There was not a -thing he said which she could not pull to pieces, nor any of his actions -that were not subject to her comments. “I would not have done that, -papa, if I had been you,” she would say; and yet she was of opinion that -of all human creatures there was not one, on the whole, who came within -a hundred miles of Her Britannic Majesty’s Vice-Consul at Leghorn. This -was the result of Rita’s observations during the dozen years or so which -she had unconsciously spent in accumulating materials upon which to form -an opinion. And this was no small thing to say, for a clever child is -the most close of observers, and far less likely to be blinded by -partiality than any other human critic. As for the Vice-Consul, he had -no such foundation of commonsense and close observation to support his -certainty that such another as his Margherita had never been born to -man. He worshipped his child without any reason at all. If she had been -stupid, perhaps even if she had been unamiable, he would have loved her -all the same; but he took it for a special instance of the goodness of -God towards him that she was delightful, and lovely, and sweet, and -clever--as well as that she was Rita, which last, however, was the chief -and unspeakable claim to his love. - -And the house in which these two lived together was a very happy house. -It is the privilege of girls to exercise this sweet reconciling power, -to make a father, or a mother, at peace with fate, reconciled to all the -troubles of the past. Perhaps it is inconsistent with the greater -self-assertion of young manhood to give so much thought, so much care to -the elder generation; certainly it is only here and there a -preternaturally excellent youth who ever fills such a place in the home -and the life of his parents as Rita filled to her father; and she was -not preternaturally good, but mischievous, and contradictory and -impetuous, as well as bright, and tender, and gentle. She never tried to -make her father happy, or thought of doing her duty to him, but only -loved him and lived with him in the most natural unconscious freedom of -word and thought. People may pass years under the same roof without ever -living with each other; but Rita poured her young abundant life into -the stream of her father’s without thinking that any other channel was -possible. Everything that the one did was interesting to the other, -everything that happened contributed to their more perfect union. It had -never occurred as yet to either that this life of theirs might change or -undergo any transformation until the time should come when it would be -split in twain by death; and that was a contingency which, as applying -to herself (to think that her father might die had scarcely occurred to -her), seemed to Rita the least likely of all possibilities, while he, on -his part, if he ever took it into consideration, did it tranquilly, -thinking of his own death, as men in the midst of their lives, with good -health and no appearance of failing, do think of that event, as of -something too far off to trouble one’s-self about--inevitable, and -bringing its own atmosphere of resignation with it, but too shadowy and -distant to disturb anybody’s peace. - -It may be imagined that the event of Harry’s appearance was much -discussed between these two, who discussed everything. Rita had been -very grateful to Harry; she had exalted him into a hero. The description -she had given to her father, when she came rushing to his side on the -night of the occurrence, white and panting after her run home, had been -that of a demigod. She had described him as tall and straight as an -arrow, towering head and shoulders over the common creatures about. She -described the little voice in Italian which she had welcomed joyfully -enough, and which had begun to intercede with her assailants with a -troubled tone of politeness, and how it had been suddenly broken short -by the strenuous English of the deliverer. Rita, when she got over her -fright, cried and laughed together over the incident. She made it into a -dramatic scene, setting Paolo’s tremulous entreaties to music--and then -broke in upon the cadence with short sharp English monosyllables, “Let -go that girl!” She put the most flowery Italian into Paolo’s mouth, then -brought the other voice in, strong and brief in a masculine monotone. -She did nothing but repeat this little entertainment all the evening -after she had got over her fright, and when her father appeared with the -hero, looking somewhat sheepish, but very strong, very English, and more -good-looking than might have been hoped, Rita had been delighted. She -did not take, however, the accident romantically, or with any -high-flown interest in her deliverer. Discussing him afterwards, she -allowed that he did not look particularly brilliant. - -“But what of that?” she cried. “Heroes never need to be clever. It is a -great deal more than we deserve that he should be so good-looking. He is -very good-looking, handsome and heavy, just like a hero,” Rita said, -“and with a story! It is a great deal more than we had any right to -expect.” But the story itself did not make any such impression upon her -as it did upon her father. Rita was cynical for the first time, and did -not think much of the quarrel with the family. “There are so many -stories like that,” she said, bending her brows a little; “it saves a -great deal of explanation. But he is not clever enough to have invented -it. He would have blushed and stammered, and even you, papa, could have -found him out.” - -“Even I!” said Mr. Bonamy; “you speak as if my stock of intelligence was -the smallest you knew.” - -“Not that,” said Rita, laughing, “but you know you are very easily taken -in, papa; oh, yes, you cannot deny that.” - -“You make a great deal out of a very little,” said the Vice-Consul, -almost angry; for it was his weak point, and consequently he was very -susceptible to criticism. “Besides,” he said, in his usual tone, “when I -am taken in, as you say I am, it is by regular humbugs, professors of -the art. There was that fellow from Geneva, was there ever a better -get-up? he would have taken in old Pam himself.” This was his synonym -for astute and wary wisdom, as some people say Old Nick. “But Oliver has -not a bit of get-up about him. Whatever he is, he is genuine, the least -experienced could see as much.” - -“I told you,” said Rita, “he is not clever enough to have invented a -story; you always come round, papa, to what I say.” - -“Yes,” said the Vice-Consul, “I _am_ a great fool about you, Rita, -everybody says that; no, he is not clever enough for a made-up story; -and he is so much in earnest about it that it must be true.” - -Rita did not reply. She had no desire to prove that her father was -wrong: and, besides, for once in a way her observations confirmed his. -She recalled to herself the big young fellow, with his ingenuous looks, -and that air of confused and deprecating surprise, as if he could not -understand why they should make so much of him; a humbug (she concluded) -would have made the most of himself, and shown no surprise. - -“Of course he will not be able to keep it up,” Mr. Bonamy said, “they -will find him out. By the way, remember to keep a look out in the agony -column, they will appeal to him through that. I. O.; they are rather -queer initials.” - -“What does I. stand for?” Rita asked. - -“Isaac Oliver. It is an odd sort of name too for a young fellow like -that.” - -“Isaac! I don’t believe it can be his right name. He is no more like an -Isaac than I am. Isaac ought to be a sort of soft old man, very nice and -gentle, but a little silly, like Isaac in the Bible.” - -“My Rita, you are rather profane. Now it sounds to me like an old Jew, -which is to say an old humbug, up to everything, flattering and fawning, -and ready to sell his soul if he had one.” - -“It is you who are profane, papa; my Isaac, of course, was an old Jew; -they were all Jews, all those people in the Bible: but he was more like -you, a great deal, for it was he that was taken in. _That_ cannot be his -right name.” - -“Whose right name? you jump so from the Bible to yesterday that you are -confusing. I am obliged to you for the compliment about the patriarch. -And as for our young fellow, I think it very likely that Oliver is not -his name; but an _alias_ is seldom carried so far as the Christian name; -he must be Isaac, I am afraid, though it is disenchanting.” - -“Poor Mr. Oliver,” Rita said. “There is not very much enchantment about -him anyhow. Yes, yes, he is just the right thing for a hero: but there -ought to be something behind, he ought to be a little clever, or witty, -or poetical, or something, before there can be any enchantment. Oh yes, -it was quite right to ask him for Sunday. He will be very -tranquillizing, quite Sunday fare.” - -“That was what I thought,” her father said. “You will try all your arts -upon him, you will turn him inside out. In half-an-hour you will find -out more than I would in a day.” - -“I shall not want to find out,” said Rita; “if he is so secret, why -should I try to penetrate his mystery? Mysteries, papa, I have often -told you, are seldom worth finding out.” And they both laughed at this -utterance of wisdom: but yet there was a kind of understanding, at all -events on Rita’s side, that it was she who was the most prudent of the -two. - -Harry met them at church on Sunday morning. There were a great many -people at the English Church, and they had the usual look of -sectarianism and conventicalism which a small foreign community, holding -its select little “diet of worship” (as we say in Scotland) in its -separate church, in the midst of a large Catholic community, always has. -It is hard to understand why the mere fact of not being able to say our -prayers along with the mass of our fellow-creatures, should give -everywhere that look of narrow superiority, yet lurking sense of -disadvantage. Amid all the salutations at the church-doors, which showed -how the little community hung together, Harry was shy of penetrating the -mass, and held himself modestly apart, waiting in the background till -his friends disengaged themselves from the crowd. A stranger was more -remarked in that close circle than he would have been in towns more -frequented by tourists; and his appearance was so distinctively, almost -so ideally English, that he caught a great many eyes. A tall young -fellow, muscular and strong, with curling fair hair, a light moustache, -a ruddy complexion, and an English made coat, at once attracted the -attention of the merchants and officials who made up the congregation. -Who was he? When the Vice-Consul was seen to go up to him, and he walked -off by Rita’s side, their fellow-worshippers soon came to a distinct -conclusion on the subject. He was some young English swell who had -brought letters from influential persons at home, and whom Mr. Bonamy -would naturally make the most of. That was the best of an official -position, was the commentary of more than one looker-on--that the best -people were always sent to you--that whereas all the straggling tourists -who were nobody, were recommended by troublesome acquaintances to -ordinary residents in a town, the Consul had all the people of -distinction, and though he himself held no particular rank, made -acquaintance, and occasionally formed alliances, with very superior -people indeed. Many looks were in consequence cast after Harry, as very -happy, yet very humble, he walked off by Rita’s side. He thought that it -was he who had the advantage, while the spectators considered him a -distinguished visitor, and envied the Vice-Consul, whose position made -his house the natural head-quarters for such fine people. He walked -through the shady streets, saying very little, feeling himself quite -happy without speech, and it seemed to him like the repetition of a -dream when he came in again to the cool dining-room, and sat down once -more between the father and daughter. It was only a few days since he -had done that for the first time, coming in, like a man in a dream, to -find an unknown world opened to him. Now the world was no longer -unknown, he had got his place in it, he had the prospect before him of -knowing it better and better, it was his home, as it was that of the -others. - -With a strange feeling of security and continuance he took his place at -the table. He was never a great talker, and he allowed his entertainers -to talk over him, not being so quick to understand their allusions, and -all the shades of meaning in their rapid conversation, as he would have -wished. Sometimes Rita would turn to him with a pleasant word, bringing -him into the current, sometimes Mr. Bonamy would say something that made -an answer needful; but for the most part he was silent, taking his share -only with looks. He did the best he could for himself by this means, -for his face was bright, brighter perhaps than his intelligence, and he -had the pleasant art of being interested, whether he quite understood or -not. His look, which was half wistful, half understanding, with a little -eagerness in it, a desire to follow what was being said, and a naïve -comprehension that it was slightly above him, caught Rita’s attention in -spite of herself. So far as she was aware, this young woman was more -fond of intellectual people and their discourse than of anything else in -the world. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was her preference -for this kind of society, her disdain of trivial minds, and the common -chatter of the everyday world. And she had already expressed her opinion -about Harry, that he would do very well for a hero of the muscular kind, -but as for any special interest, a man required something more, a touch -of poetry or intellect, or at least, if nothing else, cleverness, to -recommend him to the attention. It happened, however, two or three times -over, that when Rita’s eyes were travelling the length of the table to -meet her father’s, with whom she was talking, they were caught by -Harry’s, who sat at the side. Harry had uttered nothing that was not -commonplace, and, indeed, he had not said much at all; but when he thus -caught her eye, and forced her to look at him, his face was more -eloquent than his tongue. It was not at any time an unmeaning face, and -to-day it meant a great deal; it meant a conviction that he was very -happily placed between two such bright and clever people; it meant great -attention and admiration and interest. Rita was caught by it as if he -had put forth his hand to stop her as she passed him. Stupid! how could -she have thought him stupid? That look was not stupid, not even heavy or -pre-occupied, like so many other young Englishmen, who looked distrait -when anything was talked of beyond their own little capacities. Harry -had not at all this aspect. If his mind was not quite up to the mark of -their conversation his attention was. He wanted to listen and to -understand. She looked at him, thus, once, twice, feeling each time more -favourably disposed--and the third time she fairly stopped and turned -round and addressed him. - -“Mr. Oliver,” she said, “we are very uncivil, papa and I. We are so used -to talking to each other that, when there is anyone here, if he does not -stop us and force us to listen to him, we just go on. I have felt how -silly it was. I wish you would put a stop to us, and make us listen to -you.” - -“But I should not like that,” said Harry; “you talk a great deal better -than I do. Talking was never any gift of mine; but I like to listen. I -am picking up a great deal, though you may not think it. Everything is -so new to me here.” - -“Well, then, I will ask you a very silly question,” said Rita; “I will -ask you what everybody will ask you, and of course you cannot tell yet -how to answer; but you will answer all the same. How do you like -Leghorn, Mr. Oliver? Do you think you will like us when you know us -better? I hope you think that is a nice commonplace beginning,” said -Rita, laughing; and a faint little colour came over her of half -amusement and half self-reproach. - -“Indeed, I don’t think it silly at all; I am commonplace myself,” said -Harry, with a little sigh. “I wish I could be more remarkable, but I -can’t. Yes, I like Leghorn very much, and I think I shall like all the -people I know, more and more as I know them better. But I don’t know -many people. Except Mr. Bonamy and yourself, who have been so kind to -me, I have got but one friend.” - -“One friend, hear him! as if that was a thing that could be picked up at -every corner,” the Vice-Consul said. - -“I never saw anything like him,” said Harry, “he is like a child--and -very simple in his ways of thinking. He is twenty times better than I -am, and yet I feel sometimes as if I must laugh. You don’t know what -strange people we English are, Miss Bonamy. We can see how good a thing -is, and yet we can’t help laughing if it is a little out of the way.” - -“Then,” said Rita, “tell me why. I have no way of knowing but what -people tell me. There are things said about Englishmen just as there are -things said about women, in general. Now the women I know are quite -unlike each other. I cannot imagine any one thing that they would all -think or do. Are Englishmen all the same?” - -“Now, Oliver, be on your guard,” said her father, “that’s one of her -theories. She wants to push you into a corner and compel you to commit -yourself. Women have this and that way of thinking, we all say, don’t -we? and it’s quite true. ‘Really!’ says this little person, ‘I suppose, -then, women are all exactly like each other?’ Have a care, my young -friend; she looks innocent, but I don’t advise you to let yourself fall -into her hands.” - -“When I said Englishmen”--said Harry, faltering; then he gathered a -little boldness--“We are not all like each other: but this is rather -true of all of us--at least, so I think: we jeer at things we don’t -understand.” - -“Bravo,” said the Vice-Consul, clapping his hands, “I see you understand -our dear countrymen.” - -“We don’t mean much harm,” said Harry, led on beyond himself. “I suppose -that in other countries just the same happens in different ways. When -people act in a way we should not think of acting, we think it is so -strange that we--laugh at them. It is wrong, I have no doubt, and silly, -but still we do it. The first thing is, we laugh at them--Italians don’t -seem to do so. They are most polite.” - -“And the French don’t do it.” - -“Papa, they do a great deal worse,” said Rita; “for the language, for -instance, they are far more hard than you. When anyone speaks English -badly, you laugh, but you don’t mind. The Frenchman doesn’t laugh, he -is horribly polite--but he thinks the worse of you for ever after. I see -what you mean. There is a kind of a way you have of looking at things in -the same light, which does not mean that you are alike, or all thinking -in the same way. Perhaps,” said Rita, meditatively, “that may be true of -Englishmen--and women too. Yes, I see how that might be true. I am very -much obliged to you, Mr. Oliver, for putting it in so clear a light.” - -Harry could only stare at her with a mixture of amazement and -gratification. He to be applauded for putting something in a clear -light! and by Rita, who knew so much more than he did. He could not but -laugh within himself at the unlikelihood of it; yet he was gratified by -the thought. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -HARRY’S PROGRESS. - - -After this, Harry “settled down.” It was a somewhat disappointing, -disenchanting process, but still it was better than it appeared at the -first glance. Paolo, finding that his friend could not be happy without -a sitting-room, which seemed to himself the most unnecessary of -luxuries, exerted himself to procure an appartamento for him which -should include this, and managed, after a little delay, to do so, at a -price so modest that Harry was astonished, and the padrone di casa much -disgusted and indignant when he found that he had actually suffered his -rooms to go, at a rent extravagant only for Italians, to an Englishman. -The landlord was so disappointed and annoyed by this that the occasion -made him voluble; for “Ecco!” he said, “a countryman, that is--a -countryman. He knows as much as we do. He is aware of everything. He can -do what he pleases. That he should have the rooms cheap, that -understands itself: that is all just. But a stranger! And, on the other -hand, they want so much more, these strangers. They will demand -breakfast, and even refreshments in the evening! They are so lazy they -will not give themselves the pain to descend to the caffè for their -coffee, which is the natural way, but will demand to have it here, which -is endless trouble. I never could have believed that Ser Paolo, who is a -person of education, would so have treated an old neighbour.” He said so -much on the subject that Harry, with something of that impatience and -careless magnificence which are (supposedly) the characteristics of the -English, declared that, rather than be so persecuted, he would pay -twenty lire a month more than had been asked of him, an offer which made -the padrone think him a great fool, but a true Englishman, and which -drove Paolo nearly out of himself with indignation. It may be understood -by this fact that Harry soon picked up as much Italian as made him -understand at least the tone of address, whether it was friendly or -angry: and in smaller matters he was soon able to make himself -understood. - -The first night of his residence in his new quarters, when he heard -Paolo close the door behind him, and felt himself left all alone at the -top of a tall Italian house, without a soul within call, gazing round -him at the four bare white walls, his lamp looking at him with three -unwinking eyes, and not a trace of anything that looked like home--vain -word!--the young fellow was altogether overcome, and staring round with -a wild look of despair, was as near breaking into idle tears as ever man -was. But what was the use? He had made his bed (or his people had made -it for him, as he thought), and there he must lie. He had half a dozen -books on the table: one upon the laws that affect shipping and the -maritime code, another on International Law generally, the rest Italian -grammars and dictionaries, a volume of easy little stories in the same -language, and that well-known volume of Silvio Pellico, out of which so -many people have learned their first Italian lessons. They were none of -them very interesting to Harry. “Le Mie Prigioni,” when you have made -it out with the aid of a dictionary, is not more tempting than any other -book would be under these circumstances. They were as blank as the white -walls, the silent room, the dead solitude of the place, to Harry. A -yellow novel, if he could have got that, would have been precious to -him. But he had not even that to fall back upon. He crept dismally to -bed, unable to contemplate his fate, and turned his face to the wall, -much as his mother was doing at home. But in the morning things were -better; and though he never could reconcile himself to the gloom and -solitude of his appartamento at night, during the day things went -tolerably well with him when he began to know what was being said around -him, and to wake up to the new insight which a new language confers. -Gradually he began to take a little interest in the porter’s family, in -the shrill padrona, shrieking her orders and her commentaries from the -balcony of the fourth piano across the deep well of the courtyard, who -was a terrible nuisance, yet by and by began to feel homelike, so that -he missed her sharp peacock-cry when the arrival of a baby compelled a -brief withdrawal from her usual active survey of the affairs of her -tenants. And so the time went on, and months passed, and Harry became -accustomed to his life. - -There were times, however, in which those slow beginnings of content -which soothed Harry’s mind, rose into something a great deal higher and -brighter: and these were the hours which he spent in the private rooms -at the Consulate, where, by degrees, he became very familiar, a sort of -son of the house. Harry never knew how this happened, nor did the -Bonamys themselves, who, bit by bit, opened their doors more completely -to him. They had never done so before to any clerk. The office generally -was held at arm’s length by the head of it. He was thought proud by the -_employés_ generally. What was he, many even asked, that he should give -himself so many airs? But he never gave himself any airs to Harry. Even -when they began to forget that romance about the young squire who had -quarrelled with his family, which was entirely their own invention, they -did not turn away from or cast off the stranger who, falling into their -midst with no recommendations at all, had made himself so strong a -footing amongst them, partly from accident, partly from imagination. -Very soon, indeed, Harry came to be considered as part of the family; a -ready hand to be appealed to for everything; a ready hearer, though he -did not always understand: an invariably sympathetic and trustworthy -friend of the house. To Mr. Bonamy it was a great advantage to have some -one in the office whom he could treat upon this footing; to whom he -could speak confidentially of all that occurred, and with whom, if need -were, even in the bosom of society, he could confer on any accident of -official business, sending Harry off to do this or that, even from the -card-table where he was playing round games with the younger guests, or -out of the heart of a valse, when need was. Harry liked the dance, and -was merry and useful at the card-playing, but he never complained or -grumbled if he were sent away. He had to come back late when the company -was gone, to make his report, and that privilege atoned to him for the -self-sacrifice. On such occasions, when the great _salone_ was still all -alight, and Rita reposing upon the sofa, or buried in a great chair, -after her exertions, while the Vice-Consul had already put on the light -dressing-gown in which he smoked his evening cigar, the young man, -returning, had the pleasantest welcome. Mr. Bonamy put towards him his -box of cigarettes; the windows were all open; the warm Italian night -glowing out of doors; the stars shining, and every breath of the soft -air a delight. In that Italian room the light smoke was not thought out -of place. Rita had been used to it all her life. She might have taken -one of these little cigarettes herself and nobody thought any harm; but, -fortunately for Harry’s feelings, to whom it would have been a very -terrible profanation of a girl’s lips, she did not. But she lay back in -her chair, her pale face and dark locks relieved upon the soft, rich old -damask, and watched the two men with a smile. The Consul, who loved -everything that was beautiful, had his smoking-coat also made of -damask--a piece of brocade, in colours which Harry thought faded--and -he, too, threw himself negligently back in his chair and listened to his -young aide-de-camp’s report, with his fine head on one side, like a -benevolent prince listening to the information collected for him by a -young prime minister, all visionary, and eager in his plans for the -benefit of their people. Perhaps it was only a refractory ship-captain -whom Harry had talked into submission, or an impatient Englishman whose -suspicions of extortion had got him into trouble; and sometimes the -three would laugh over the characteristic follies of their countrymen, -and incapacity to understand the grandiloquence of the Italian -authorities. When Harry got to be sufficiently strong in the language, -he would himself make very merry over the _sentimento magnifico_ of the -professional pillagers whose charges here and there drove a stranger -wild, but who always professed the noblest superiority to all interested -motives. Rita, who was more than half an Italian, was sometimes piqued -by the laughter in which her father joined, and would stand up for the -kindly race to whom she owed half her blood and all her training. She -would shine out from the soft background when she thus roused herself in -defence of her people, her great dark eyes glowing, her white little -figure all alive with energy. “You are all made up of suspicions, you -English,” she said. “You think everyone wants to cheat you, to get your -money from you. Yes, and it is you who want to get what they have from -them. I wonder who it is who picks up the pictures, and the -_bric-à-brac_, and shakes his head” (which she did with a good imitation -of her father’s benevolent regret), “and complains that all the little -dealers are beginning to know the value of the things they have to -sell, eh, papa? Old Leonardi showed his _sentimento magnifico_ when he -let you have that little Ghirlandajo for next to nothing.” - -“I don’t believe it is a Ghirlandajo--of his school, that is all,” said -the Consul, blandly, “and he lets me have it cheap--not for nothing: he -lets me have it cheap because he thinks the English travellers will see -it here and will go to him to be fleeced, that is the best reason he -has, I fear.” - -“And if it is, you take advantage of it,” cried Rita. “Which is worst? -There was that piece of lace the other day. I said (it was quite true) -what shall I do with it, Signor Giovanni? it is not enough for a dress; -and he said, in the prettiest way, the Signorina shall put it upon her -handkerchief to remind her of old Leonardi. I took it; what could I do? -it would have made him angry if I had refused it after that. Was not -that the _sentimento magnifico_, Mr. Oliver--you who don’t believe in my -Italians? If I had offered him money for it he would never have spoken -to me again.” - -“I thought he was an old Jew,” said Harry; “but I see he is a fine old -fellow, and I shall go and buy something from him to-morrow. He will -cheat me; but I shan’t mind after what you have said.” - -“He will cheat you,” said the Vice-Consul, with equanimity; “though he -has a fine sense of the proper time to be honest, and the proper time to -be liberal all the same; but let us hear how you got your Englishman out -of his clutches, for that is the business immediately in hand.” - -And then Harry returned to his story, and told how the poor tourist had -raved and blasphemed, how he had bought a picture which was vouched for -as genuine, and it was found to be a flagrant copy; and how old Leonardi -had perjured himself over and over again, and sworn by all the saints -that there could be no doubt of its authenticity, holding up his fine -old Italian head in the very presence of the painter, who had made the -copy, and denying all knowledge of it. The tourist, whose settled -conviction it was that “the natives” everywhere were in league against -him, was, however, the chief point in Harry’s report. He had rather -thought so himself when he landed in Leghorn, and the feeling which had -made him refuse Paolo’s first offer of service, and carry his own -portmanteau, and hunt out the hotel for himself, still lingered in his -bosom. He understood the character so well that he set it forth with -great power before his audience; and Harry was so much gratified by his -success, and by the gradual blowing away of the cloud which was on -Rita’s countenance, and the delightful laughter with which she chimed in -after a while, that he rose into higher heights. He himself was just -beginning to awake to the humours of the Englishman abroad, and it was -very pleasant to find himself superior to them, as one who understood -the language and knew the people, and could explain a good many mistakes -and misapprehensions away. - -“Mr. Oliver, you are very English,” Rita said gravely, after the story -and the laughter were over. She was apt to change in a moment, and with -the smile just disappearing from her lips, to produce the most serious -remark. - -“Am I?” said Harry, a little crestfallen; for he rather thought he had -made it apparent that he was very superior to the English--that is the -common English who travel, and who are often, as we all hasten to tell -our foreign friends, so little credit to the race. Then he added with -more spirit, “I suppose I am very English. What else could I be? I have -only been a year away.” - -“Do you call this ‘away?’” she said, with a somewhat startled tone. -“Yes, of course it is ‘away.’ Over there is what you have always been -used to--that is home--of course;” but the idea seemed to be new to -Rita, and not to give her pleasure. The Vice-Consul had gone off to his -business-room to get something that was wanted, and the two young people -were alone. - -“It may be home,” said Harry, with a roused and almost irritated tone; -“but I shall never see it again. Home has so many meanings. I shall say -presently I am going home, and I shall mean my appartamento--as Paolo -calls it--not very much of a home,” he said, with a sharp laugh. - -“Isn’t it? I say home, too, when I speak of England; but I shall never -see it. Do you know I am never to be allowed to go to England, Mr. -Oliver? That makes me like to hear everything about it. Then you and I -are the same in that; but you will change your mind.” - -“You are much more likely to change your mind,” said Harry. “I--have -good reason----” - -“And do you think I have not good reason too? When my mother went there, -she died.” - -“She might have died anywhere,” Harry said. - -“It is harsh of you to say so. Yes, to be sure she might have died -anywhere: but they say it is so cold in England,” said Rita, with a -little shiver; the night air seemed all at once to have grown chilly. -She looked at the big window close to her and shivered again. Harry got -up and closed it without a word. - -“It is cold, when you expect it to be cold,” said Harry; “that is pretty -often, to be sure: but it does not take you in an underhand way like -this. In England it is all above-board; it blows right in your face, it -does not steal in like _that_ behind your back and chill you. Things are -honest at home. I think I could take you all over England, and you would -get no harm.” - -“Could you?” said Rita eagerly; “do you know a way? but how then, Mr. -Oliver? tell me, do you know a way?” - -“It would be just to take care of you,” said Harry, with a blush. “I -know _that_ way. I should understand that you wanted taking care of, and -I would take care of you. For my part, I should not be a bit afraid.” - -Rita did not notice the blush on his face. The desire of her heart was -to go to England, and this made her think. She had the credulity of her -birthplace about wonderful elixirs and miraculous ways of doing a -dangerous thing. She looked at him dreamily, yet eagerly, with her great -eyes. “But _how_ should you do it?” she repeated, “Mr. Oliver; if there -is some particular way, will you tell me? For if you only knew--if you -could only know how I wish to go to England----!” - -“There is no particular way,” said Harry; “if I were ever to go back -home, which I never shall--and if you were to go with me, which most -likely you never would--then you should go, and no harm would happen to -you; that is all I know.” - -He spoke abruptly, and he was flushed and hasty. Rita did not think at -the moment what it meant; she sat very quiet in her great chair, while -her father came in and resumed the conversation--thinking over what he -had said. Immediately there had risen before her a vision of the white -cliffs she had heard of so often, and of green fields and red roofs, and -of all the special features of English scenery which she had read of. -What could it be that made him so sure? “If I were ever to go, which I -never shall--and if you were to come with me, which most likely you -never would---- Well, no,” Rita said to herself, with a half smile, “not -much likelihood of that; how could I go with him? he means if we were to -take him with us--he means----” and then she came to a pause, and a -sudden reflection of the colour on Harry’s face wavered over hers for a -minute; only a minute. She was not altogether inexperienced in life; she -had already been the subject of several proposals addressed to her -father, which he had declined after reference to Rita, so that she was -aware that she was looked upon with favourable eyes by various persons, -and that the love which is so much talked of in books might light upon -her at any moment. Rita had, for her part, no particular objection; she -had even left the door of her heart open, so that when he was thereabout -that intrusive sentiment might come in if he pleased. But up to this -moment he had not come in; the door had stood open, but nothing had -entered except poetry and gentle thoughts. But Rita, after this -conversation, experienced a very curious sensation. She felt not as if -anyone had got in by the door, but as if some one passing had half -stumbled against it, finding it closed, and, no answer being given, had -gone his way. In the first haze of this idea she got up from her chair -and said good night, and went off to her room, complaining that she was -sleepy. But she was not sleepy; she sat down and began to think as soon -as she had got within the protection of her chamber. It was not any -personal feeling that moved her, far less any strong emotion; but all at -once she was conscious of a keen and lively curiosity springing up in -her mind, eager and lively as her nature. Did he mean----? What did he -mean? “If I were to go to England--which I never shall--and if you were -to come with me----” Why should she go with him? What reason could there -be for such a thing, what excuse? He must be mad to make such a -suggestion; but yet it kept coming back to her. “If I were to go, and if -you were to come with me.” Certainly the door of that hidden chamber in -her heart had swung to and closed, and somebody passing, a stranger, had -run up against it, and shaken it, as if to try whether it would be easy -to open. It was a very strange suggestion. Rita had been sought by -persons of condition, by people who had something to offer, and who had -made their proposals, as everybody who respects himself does in Italy, -to the young lady’s father. But here was somebody who was nobody, and -who took hold of the handle of that door of her heart, which she had -believed to be open, but which had evidently closed of itself, and gave -it a sharp shake, without thinking of her father or any consequences -whatever. She thought of it for a long time, turning it over and over -with the greatest curiosity. It was a new thing in her experience. He -wanted a great many of the qualities which she considered indispensable -in a man. First and chiefest of all he was not clever. He knew nothing -about books, he scarcely knew a picture when he saw one. Instead of -hunting about in the _bric-à-brac_ shops as her father did, and as even -little Paolo Thompson (whom Mr. Oliver called Paul-ó) was in the habit -of doing, picking up wonderful things now and then, this stranger gazed -with blank eyes at the treasures, and could not understand them. He was -altogether a different kind of man from any she had ever seen, a -homelier, duller sort of man; and yet he was not dull. The whole house -was quiet and asleep when Rita suddenly sprang up from this long -reverie, catching sight of her own big eyes in her looking-glass, and -wondering at the wonder in them. She had got a new idea into her active -little head. It was something novel and curious, and very amusing, but -it did not seem to her at all necessary that it should ever come to -anything. She wondered what he would say next, or how he would look, or -what he would do. She was pleased on the whole to think that now perhaps -she would have an opportunity of watching what a man looked like in such -circumstances as these, which is a thing always interesting and, some -people think, very amusing to see. - -As for Harry, he went home that evening with a sensation not less -extraordinary, but much more definite than that of Rita. He had not -thought of the meaning of what he was saying till he had said it; he had -not been aware of meaning anything, and yet he knew now that he did mean -it. What had he been doing? Without a name, without a home, without -anything in the world, he had been so foolish as to fall in love with a -girl who, in the best of circumstances, would have been above him. The -Joscelyns thought a great deal of themselves; but when Harry thought of -the parlour at the White House, and then of Rita’s drawing-room, he felt -that she was immeasurably above him, and that to say such a thing to -her was not only wrong, but mean and ungenerous. If you were to come -with me--Good life, why had he suggested that to her? _She_ come with -him? It seemed ridiculous, more out of the question to Harry than it had -done to Rita. He was angry beyond measure with himself for letting -himself be run away with, so to speak, by the foolish impulse of the -moment. For he had never meant to say it, or indeed to suggest any idea -of the kind. He was full of sense, though passion had him in its power -when it once got hold of him. In the meantime, however, there was no -question of passion. It was the pleasure of his life to be with Rita, to -see her, to do little services for her, to hear her talk; but when the -idea was suddenly set before him that he might marry Rita and carry her -away with him, Harry was more frightened than she was. He to think of -such a thing! He walked home at such a pace, with such a swift, -impatient step, that the few passengers in the streets turned about to -look after him, wondering what business he might have in hand--if he -were going for a doctor, or any such urgent occasion; but Harry was -walking fast only to keep up with his thoughts, which had suddenly been -let loose like colts in a pasture, and were all careering about wildly, -so that it was impossible to catch or lay hold upon them. How could he -have been so mad as to have let them loose! and he wondered had she -understood him? But how could she understand him, a child like that? she -was too innocent to understand. He hurried along to his apartment in -full chase after that wild herd of thoughts and imaginations. If he had -them but once safely shut up again under lock and key certainly it would -be a strong temptation indeed that would tempt him to let them loose. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -A REVELATION. - - -Harry found himself thus brought up, and forced to give, to himself, an -account of himself, such as he had never in his consciousness been -compelled to make before. He was in an altogether new position, and it -was indispensable that he should know where it was leading to, and what -was meant by it. There had been no occasion to inquire into this before. -He had plenty to do learning Italian, learning about the shipping, -getting into the duties of his new life. The Consul’s house and the -Consul’s daughter had been his little bit of happiness, his reward after -his work, his diversion from those dismal sensations of utter solitude -which had almost overwhelmed him at first; and he had not thought of -any complication of interests or feelings. Nothing need have awakened -him from this comfortable state if it had not been that unlucky -conversation about going to England. Why should he have talked about -going to England? He never meant to go back, or, if ever, not at least -until he had grown rich and altogether independent of _them_ and their -kindness. But in the meantime there did not seem any immediate -likelihood of growing rich, and why he should have stepped outside all -the boundaries of his life and suggested the sudden possibility of going -home and taking Miss Bonamy with him, baffled Harry’s comprehension. -Sometimes we say and even do things which on looking back upon them we -feel were not our doing at all, but that of some one else, rather our -enemy than otherwise, some one making a distinct effort to get us into -trouble. This was Harry’s sensation now; he was half angry and half -frightened. It was some malign, mischievous traitor wanting to betray -him, not himself, who had said that. He went home breathless, and when -he had climbed all those dark stairs to his rooms, and lighted his lamp, -he sat down, and, as it were, called a council of himself, to inquire -who had done it. But it is a great deal easier to feel that some one -has betrayed us in this way than it is to determine who has done it; for -those internal traitors have no names, and cannot be brought to the bar. -His investigation so far was fruitless; but it was fertile enough in -other ways, in ways in which he did not feel any anxiety to investigate. -Harry had never been brought into familiar intercourse with any girl -before. He had seen them at a distance, in circumstances which made no -approach possible, even if he had desired it; and he did not know that -he had ever desired it. Once or twice he had been struck by a pretty -face, and had felt a passing wish, mingled with reluctance, to make -further acquaintance with it; that is he would have wished it if he had -been able to get over his shyness, and the difficulty of knowing what to -say, and the trouble of overcoming all the preliminary obstacles. But -here none of these difficulties had existed; he had come quite naturally -into Rita’s acquaintance at once, as if she had been a comrade of his -own. There had been no shyness, no hesitation, but the easy talk of a -table at which strangers were constantly appearing and disappearing, and -a house in which this young creature, though so young, was the mistress, -and used to all the exertions necessary to set people at their ease. He -had admired her he said to himself, from the first--who could help -admiring her? but it had been so clearly her part to entertain and amuse -the people about her, and she had been so pleasantly indifferent, so -innocently at her ease, so oblivious of his presence often, so kind when -her attention was called to him, that all those little bulwarks of -freedom, which boys and girls when they are made conscious of each -other, set up instinctively, had been useless in this case. She was -neither afraid of him nor solicitous about him. Sometimes she took no -more notice than if he had been a cabbage, and at other times was as -seriously confidential as if he had been eighty. Harry had liked all the -ways of it. He had been piqued a little sometimes, but afterwards had -found it quite natural, and liked her friendliness and indifference, and -the occasional moment of household intimacy, when she would look at him -to indicate some little service she wanted, as she might have looked at -her brother, without words, taking his interest and compliance for -granted. And gradually, without any thought, this had come to be the -pleasure and support of Harry’s life. When he did not see her, when he -was not at the house for a whole day, it was a dull day indeed; but -still faintly illuminated by to-morrow, when he was sure to see her. -When she went away upon a visit, which happened once, the Consul’s -despondency kept him in countenance. Mr. Bonamy adopted Harry in her -place. “Come in and help me to eat something,” he said, “I can’t bear -her empty seat. When my Rita is away I feel inclined to hang myself.” -Harry had almost betrayed himself (to himself) by the warmth of the -sympathy which he bestowed upon the disconsolate father; but as Mr. -Bonamy ended by a doleful laugh at himself as an old fool, Harry laughed -too, and the catastrophe was averted, and so things had gone on for a -whole long year. - -What a year that had been!--far the most wonderful of Harry’s life. So -many new things had happened to him; he had been torn out of all his old -habits, and made into another man with a new set of habits--as new as -the light-coloured clothes in which alone it was possible to live on -those southern coasts. And he had become so much the more of a man that -he was now, so to speak, two men, one developed out of the other. He -looked back upon the Henry Joscelyn of Liverpool with a mixture of -amusement and pity. He had been a poor sort of limited creature, not -knowing much; going half asleep between his office and his lodgings, now -and then going to a poor theatre, walking about with small clerks in -other offices, who knew nothing more than their own little gossip and -the town news, and the fluctuations of trade. Perhaps it was a sign that -Harry himself had not yet reached any great elevation, that he thought -his present life so greatly superior. The reader knows he had not -thought so always. He had compared his big, bare room, with its four -white walls, most unfavourably with the carpeted and curtained parlour -of his Liverpool experiences. But since that time his mind had undergone -many transformations. His appartamento had become to him what Paolo’s -was, a decent and tranquil shelter for the night. He had no longer -thought of the respectabilities, of sitting there for a whole evening, -of drinking tea, and having his friends to see him there. These were old -customs at which he smiled. He had acquired a great many others which -were now to him not only a second nature, but far more enjoyable, more -lifelike, he thought, than the old. At all events, they were the habits -of the present, not of the past. And amidst these changes, the advance -in which might be questionable, were various other changes in Harry’s -life of which the advantage was unquestionable. To live half his time in -the Consul’s house, between a man of culture and education, and a young, -fresh, intelligent girl, who had grown up knowing a world of things -until then sealed books to Harry; and to have to do, not with mere -bookkeeping, and sales, and goods of various descriptions, but with men, -in a hundred little perplexities, out of which his skill, his patience, -his superior knowledge, had to deliver them--were educating influences -of the most active kind. He was a different man, and he felt himself to -be so. How much he was the same man of course it was more difficult for -Harry to see. - -And here, in his new life, he had come to the first great difficulty; -things had gone on smoothly, not a hitch anywhere. He had discharged all -his duties to the satisfaction of his chief. He had acquired the very -phraseology of a much higher class than that which he naturally belonged -to, and talked of his chief as if he had been a fine gentleman in a -public office. Many people, indeed, believed that Harry had been sent -out by the “F.O.” with special instructions to keep Mr. Bonamy in order; -and many more that he had come to Mr. Bonamy with the strongest -recommendations from that dignified and mysterious power. Nobody guessed -that he had been picked up off the streets, so to speak, by the mere -generous caprice and mistaken romantic fancy of the rich official, who -might, for all he knew, have been jeopardising the credit of the office -by admitting a young adventurer to its sacred shelter. Mr. Bonamy had -long ago forgotten that Harry had come to his present promotion in any -illegitimate or irregular way, or that the appointment had occurred -otherwise than in the ordinary course; and Oliver was his right hand, -his constant refuge, his aide-de-camp in all things. He had even -forgotten that he did not know all about the origin of the stranger who -was now so freely admitted to his house. He was rash in that as in other -matters, and though he would have given his life for his daughter it -never occurred to him to take those precautions about her which the most -selfish parent usually thinks it necessary to take. Everything had gone -smoothly for Harry. At the Consul’s house he had met “the best people” -that were to be found in Leghorn, the rich English merchants, and also -many Italians, old traditionary friends of Rita’s mother, who was of -Italian blood. By this time Harry had got a footing among them, and was -asked to other houses, and known everywhere. Everything was going -smoothly. He had no reason to be discontented or anxious about his -future life. Everybody knew him, and nobody knew other than good of him. -Whatever happened he would never again be the desolate stranger, with a -new name, and no reputation, who had landed friendless on these shores. - -And yet, with all these advantages, and this progress, suddenly, in a -moment, he was brought to a standstill by this discovery. What wonder if -Harry was provoked beyond bearing with himself and that traitor in him, -who would not be brought to book? There was something almost ludicrous -in his dismay. Why couldn’t you hold your tongue? he said, indignantly, -to that something within him. Who wanted to know what you were thinking? -What is the good of it now you have let it out? It was a ridiculous -discussion, there being no one to reply, but yet it gave expression to -the self-provoked and impatient character of Harry’s dilemma. For how -was he to banish it back again and go on as if that idiotic suggestion -had never been made? - -Love is not so simple a thing as people think, at least in these -artificial days. In the old simple story-books, and, indeed, often still -in life, when such a revelation as this comes to a man, he jumps at once -to the natural conclusion, throws himself at once into the situation, -wooes, proposes, and, if he is successful, ends by being at -least--engaged. Sometimes he does this with a noble indifference to -circumstances and possibilities, or, at least, an indifference which, -when he has spirit enough to take the consequences upon himself, and -boldly hew possibility out of impossibility, is noble. Sometimes he -leaps the intervening steps and thinks of nothing but of marrying as the -natural and inevitable conclusion. The woman invariably does this; love -to her means marriage, or it means nothing at all. It is an offence to -her delicacy to play with it, to keep any decision at arm’s length, as -men often think themselves justified in doing; so that it remains more -simple (unless she is a coquette) in her case than in his. But with a -man, now-a-days, at least, to enjoy all the gratifications and delicate -bloom of nascent love without coming to any crisis, which must make an -entire change of all these relations and modes of living necessary, is -often very desirable. But this reluctance to come to a decision, though -sometimes selfish, is not so always; and in Harry’s case it was not -selfish. He had not walked open-eyed into this snare which life is -continually setting for young feet; he had tumbled into it unawares; and -in his situation, being unlucky enough to have tumbled into it, his only -policy, his only honourable course, was either to get out of it with as -much expedition as possible, or to hold his tongue about it, and never -to betray his plight to the other person involved. But Harry had been -betrayed, to himself, at least, if not to _her_, and the question now -was, what was he to do? He sat and thought over this question, as on the -other side of it Rita was doing--though this he did not know, nor guess; -but he could not for his part make anything of it. He could not keep -away from the Consul’s house, or shut himself out from her society, -without further betrayal. His situation was such that if he remitted his -visits, if he failed to appear with all the ease and familiarity to -which he had been admitted, and which had been growing for a year past, -he could not fail to be questioned on the subject, and his secret drawn -from him. Even if he kept a little aloof from Rita, avoided her as much -as civility permitted, and avoided occasions of being with her, that -also would be remarked. What was he to do? For now that he had once -betrayed himself who could guarantee that, continuing to see her every -day, as he had been doing, he might, on some other occasion, betray -himself still more distinctly. His embarrassment and trouble grew the -more he thought of it. It could not be, surely, that he would be -compelled to go out upon the desert world again and begin anew? Surely, -surely, that would not be necessary! And yet, what was he to do? The -question on Rita’s side by no means interfered with her rest, save for -that hour or so when she chose to think of it, instead of brushing her -hair; but it took away Harry’s, upon whom all the responsibility rested. -Her feeling on the matter came only the length of a certain amused -interest and curiosity as to how he would conduct himself in the future, -and what he meant by these odd speeches; but his affected all his life. -Whether he should stay where he was, or go away; whether he should have -to throw aside again all his hopes of advancement, all his comfort and -renewed confidence in his fate, all hung in the balance. He turned -uneasily on his bed all the night through, dozing and dreaming of it, -and waking to ask the same question again. But the night brings counsel, -and when he woke somewhat late the next morning from the sleep which -overtook him at last in the midst of his deliberations, he woke with a -new idea in his mind, as we so often do, after a long consideration. The -first words he said to himself as he woke were, “I will ask Paolo.” For -a moment he could not tell what the momentous subject was that he was to -ask Paolo about. - -Paolo had continued to be Harry’s faithful friend; but their intercourse -had been disturbed by the society at the Consulate, for, except on some -special occasion, he was not important enough to be introduced to all -the fine company that assembled there; only now and then when all the -_employés_ were asked, and a little semipublic fête for them banished -the fine people, did Paolo enter these enchanted walls, and talk with -the young mistress of the house. He had scarcely ever talked to Harry of -the Signorina, but when he did mention her there had been a slightly -cynical tone in his remarks. To tell the truth, Paolo had never got over -that first appearance of the Vice-Consul’s daughter in the street at -night. He had recognized her, clinging to her old attendant, hurrying -away, while Harry, all unconscious of what was to come of it, had -stopped the Italians who were pursuing her, and summarily knocked down -the Englishman. Paolo was not ill-natured, nor given to ill-thinking, -but he was an Italian, and he could not imagine any perfectly virtuous -motive which could have taken a young lady out of her house at that -hour. That love or intrigue had something to do with it he was -convinced, and all the proof in the world could not have persuaded him -otherwise. But he did not wish to throw any indiscreet light upon her -proceedings, or to betray her to the world. With some sense of this, -though without ever explaining to himself how it was that he had such a -feeling, Harry had refrained from telling him the climax of the story. -He had left the Consul’s sudden friendship unexplained, Paolo requiring -no explanation of it, and feeling it the most simple and natural thing -in the world. But during the whole interval there had been in Paolo’s -tone a note of unexpressed warning against the Vice-Consul’s daughter; -he had not said anything, but he had left something to be inferred. This -Harry had sometimes resented, sometimes laughed at, but he had never -taken the warning or been moved by the tone. He thought it was a -prejudice such as one person sometimes feels quite unaccountably against -another; or that perhaps it was some pique; perhaps that Paolo himself -had admired too much the young princess who was so entirely out of his -reach: but whatever was the cause, he was conscious enough that Paolo -was not favourable to the lady of his thoughts. And he resolved -accordingly to ask the advice of his friend on the grand question only. -He would not give him any special information, or even indicate, however -vaguely, who the lady was. That he should speak to Paolo at all on the -subject showed that a change had come over Harry’s thoughts. It would be -too much to say that he did not entertain still a somewhat contemptuous -estimate of the little “foreigner” who had sworn eternal friendship at -first sight, and had wept, and even kissed his friend, in his rapture at -his good fortune. When Harry recalled that embrace he grew red still, -with the undying indignation which moves a man when he has been made -ridiculous. And he still treated Paolo _de haut en bas_, with a careless -superiority. But by this time he had learned to know that Paolo was on -some things a much better authority than himself, and that, though he -might be trivial and absurd on questions which Englishmen consider -themselves judges of, yet there were other matters, chiefly touching his -own countrymen, which he knew better than any Englishman. To have -attained to this conviction was in a way a moral advance for Harry, who -formerly had looked down upon “foreigners,” not thinking them worth the -trouble of studying, or esteeming the knowledge which was only concerned -with them and their ways. He had no opportunity of speaking to Paolo -till dinner. They were both of them faithful, more or less, to the -_table-d’hôte_ at the Leone, where they had first become friends: but -Harry’s attendance there now was irregular, and when he entered the -dining-room Paolo’s face became radiant with pleasure. He seized his -friend’s arm and gave it a squeeze of satisfaction. - -“But without doubt you go somewhere in the evening?” he said, with a -mixture of wistfulness and triumphant pride. He was proud of Harry’s -succès in society; but yet to have so little of him pained the faithful -soul. He had bettered his English, but perhaps he had not much improved -his happiness by his devotion to this stranger, to whom he had been so -useful. Harry gave him very little of his company, and no demonstration -of affection in return for his love. - -“No; I want you to come to my rooms, Paolo. I want to consult you about -something--we’ll have some coffee brought up there, and we’ll have a -talk.” - -“Benissimo!” said Paolo, glowing with pleasure. “However,” he added with -simplicity, “there is little that I can instruct you in now. You know -all--you are better as me. But if there is any case that is hard to -understand----” - -“You make me ashamed of myself,” said Harry; “do you really think I -never want to see you but when I have something to ask? I don’t think I -am quite so bad as that. Of course I have picked your brains constantly; -but still I am not so bad as that.” - -At this Paolo was up in arms, as if some terrible accusation had been -brought against him. - -“Pardon, pardon, Amico,” he said. “Do you think I am finding fault? do -you think I make myself a censure over you (he meant censor, but this -was unimportant)? It is all otherwise. To see you go into society makes -me pleasure--the grandest pleasure. If not me, it is my friend--it is as -good--better, as to go myself. You pick my brains--_bene_! my brains is -glad to be pick.” - -“I think you are the best fellow in the world,” Harry said, “and I am a -beast always to take advantage of you--to come to you whenever I want -you.” - -“What then is a friend?” said Paolo, with that glistening of the eyes -which Harry was always afraid of. And then the excellent fellow -suppressed himself, knowing Harry’s objections to a scene. “I am a -duffare,” he said, with a laugh, “if there is something I can do that -makes me glad.” - -“I want your advice, Paolo,” said Harry; “it is nothing about business; -it is not information I want from you. I am in a difficulty--I am in -trouble--and I want your advice.” - -“In troouble!” Paolo’s face grew long, long as his arm; his lively -imagination harped at various cases of “troouble” he had known: -defalcations at the office, difficulties about money, fallings into -temptation. His countenance clouded with anxiety and alarm. “Amico,” he -said, “I am all at your disposition--all at your disposition! Troouble! -let us not lose the time. That turns me the stomach, as you say. -Thanks, thanks, Antonio; but take it away--I cannot more eat.” - -“That’s nonsense, old fellow,” said Harry, plying his own knife and fork -vigorously, “you see it don’t take away my appetite. Come, eat your -dinner. I’ve not been going to the bad, if that’s what you think, you -goose.” - -“Go-ose? I am willing to be goose,” said Paolo, “if it’s all right; not -anything in the bureau? not with accounts, or money, or nothing of the -sort? Benissimo?--then I will have some of that dish, Antonio, and it is -all right.” - -“I wonder what you take me for,” said Harry, offended. “Money! do you -think I am that sort? No, no, Paolo. When you’ve finished your -dinner--you have eaten nothing but that maccaroni--we’ll go to my rooms -and talk it over. It is something about myself.” - -It was all Harry could do after this to persuade his friend not to -gobble up everything that was offered to him in his anxiety to get his -meal over. Paolo could not contain his curiosity and eager interest. He -almost dragged his friend along the street when dinner was concluded, -and clambered the long staircase like a cat, in his eagerness to know -what Harry’s difficulty was, and to proceed immediately to smooth it -over and ravel it out. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -PAOLO’S ADVICE. - - -The room was large, and low, and white. There was a little balcony -hanging from the windows; the usual bright-coloured pattern on the -walls; the usual sofa and chairs, and little rug on the tiled floor. -Harry had not taken any particular care of his room or its decoration. -The lamp burned with three little clear tongues of flame in the centre -of the scene. Paolo sat in a large chair, thrown back, his little -intelligent, intent face showing from the dark background; his feet -flicking in front of him. As for Harry, he was too shy to sit still and -tell his story under the light of his friend’s large, eager eyes, which -leaped at the words before they were said. He was walking about from one -end of the room to the other. On the table was the little coffee-pot, -the thick, white cups upon a tray. Harry did not despise black coffee -now. Sometimes he came up to the table, and poured it out and swallowed -it hastily; while all the time Paolo, swinging his foot in front of him, -and leaning back in his chair, never took from him his eager black eyes. - -“And the short and the long of it,” said Harry, “is that I have fallen -in love.” He turned his back to his companion as he spoke, and stood -looking out from the open window. “I have been about the house so much, -and seen the young lady so often, that without thinking, and without -meaning it, I have just fallen in love. Jove! what a beautiful night it -is!” said Harry; “I never saw the stars so bright: that’s just the -position of affairs. She is quite out of my rank, I know, as impossible -as the stars themselves: but that’s how it is.” - -“Fallen--in lofe?” Paolo mused for a moment over the words. “It is -droll, the English way of speaking. Is it then a deep, or a sea, or a -precipice, that you--fall.” - -“Oh, don’t bother,” cried Harry. “To be sure it is a deep, and a sea, -and a precipice. Why, every fool knows that. You are never thinking of -anything of the sort, going along quite quietly, minding your own -business--when all in a moment down you go squash, and there’s no help -for you any more.” - -Paolo smiled a benevolent but somewhat tremulous smile. - -“The young lady is very beautiful--that goes without saying,” he said. -“I had thought you would have taken your freedom a little longer, and -you wish to marry and range yourself. _Bene!_ it will be what you call -all oop with me,” said Paolo, with a slight quiver; “a wife--that goes -not along with a friend--not a friend of the heart like me. It makes a -beginning to many things, but also to some an end.” - -“Good gracious!” cried Harry, “do you mean to say you don’t understand -me? Am I in a condition to marry? I have not a penny. I have my little -salary, and that is all. If I could jump up and ask her to marry me, -above-board in our English way, do you think I’d ask any advice about -it? I don’t want you to tell me she’s nice, I know that myself a great -deal better than you could tell me. It is just because I can’t marry, -and ought to hold my tongue and never say a a word about it--and yet -can’t help seeing her continually, that I don’t know what to do.” - -Paolo looked at him with a still more wistful, anxious face. He was -terribly perplexed. There was an alternative which was not at all -impossible to his imagination; but having on many occasions already come -in contact forcibly with the English mind, as represented in Harry, he -was afraid to state or refer to the other side of the question, which -nevertheless was not at all terrible to himself. He looked very -wistfully and earnestly in his friend’s face, trying hard to read and -make out what was in it. What was in it? Did he mean----? Paolo could -not tell whether he might venture to say what he would have said easily -enough to many of his other friends. - -“You would then--that understands itself; but to put it into words, -above all with an English what you call Puritano--like you; you would -then--make a little arrangement--you would then propose--without going -to church.” - -“Eh?” said Harry. He turned round upon his friend with blazing eyes. -“Eh?” The monosyllable was more terrible than a whole chapter of -invectives. Astonishment, non-comprehension, yet at the same time -alarmed and furious understanding were in it. Paolo, who was a miracle -of quick intelligence, saw all that was in Harry’s look almost before he -himself was conscious of it, and he mended his indiscretion with the -rapidity of lightning. - -“I have make a mistake,” he said. “I have not understood. It is so -sudden, I had no preparation. If you will perhaps tell me again?” - -Harry stared with wide open eyes like a bull, not quite knowing whether -to charge an adversary, or to turn away from an insignificant intruder. -The more peaceable impulse prevailed. He had stood still gazing at -Paolo, who, mentally trembling, though he put the best face he could -outwardly upon the matter, met his friend’s gaze with a deprecating -smile. After a minute he resumed his pacing about the floor. - -“I see you don’t understand,” he said, with something between a groan -and a sigh. “Well then, I’ll try again. Here are the circumstances. I am -admitted to the house, a very nice house, in which I am very happy. The -father puts faith in me; he trusts me like a friend; the young lady -is--everything that is nice. Well! don’t you see? like a fool, instead -of keeping quiet and enjoying all this, like a fool I have gone and -fallen in love with her. And last night I was as near betraying -myself---- Now if I go on I’ll be more and more tempted to betray -myself. I can’t keep away from the house--it is not possible. I can’t -offer to the young lady because I am not good enough for her, and I have -no money. Now what am I to do?” - -“You were at the house of the Signor Vice-Consul last night?” - -“Never mind where I was,” said Harry sharply, “tell me what I am to do.” - -“It would be well, amico mio, that your confidence was more great, or -none at all,” said Paolo. “If it should happen that I possessed the -acquaintance of the father and the daughter----” There was a little -incipient smile upon his lip that drove Harry wild. - -“I believe you think badly of every woman,” he cried; “all the worse for -you if you do. I am not going to make any confidences of that sort. Look -here--you know more about society than I do. You know how people are -expected to behave here. Ought I just to cut the whole concern, though I -don’t want to--and take myself off?” - -Harry came to a sudden stop in front of his friend when he asked this -question, and, for his part, Paolo almost screamed with alarm. - -“Cut--the whole concern? That is to go away?” - -“To go away,” said Harry, discharging all the breath out of his -capacious chest in one great sigh, and throwing himself into the second -great chair opposite Paolo. His friend grew pale; his olive cheeks were -blanched; the lids were puckered round his anxious and almost despairing -eyes. - -“That is what you must not do--that is what you shall not do! It is not -permitted to throw away, to make such a sacrifice,” cried Paolo, with a -rapid succession of phrases, one broken sentence hurrying upon another. -“No, no, no, no. Imagine to yourself that all goes so well. The world -regards you with so favourable eyes; you are everywhere received, -everywhere received!--a favourite, Isaack mio. But no, no; this must not -be--for a girl--for a promise--for a caprice, you will not throw away -your career.” - -Harry did not say anything. He lay back drearily in his chair, his whole -person making one oblique line from his head, which rested on the back -of the chair, to the feet stretched out on the floor. He was not likely -to talk about his career, but he felt to the bottom of his heart the -dismal alternative: to go away; to throw up everything; to resign -himself to another new and much less favourable beginning. His new start -in Leghorn had been made in circumstances so extraordinarily favourable -that they looked like a romance, and he himself could scarcely believe -them true--all the more reason why he should not presume now upon the -hospitality of the house which had taken him in; but he never could by -any possibility hope for such another piece of good fortune. In all this -he put Rita herself out of the question. Perhaps he did not feel, as a -lover sometimes does, as if his entire life was involved in her -acceptance of him. He was a sober-minded young man. It would cost him a -great wrench, it would take the colour and the pleasure out of his life -if he were banished from the happy rooms in which she reigned. But yet, -honour requiring it, he could do this and live; he was not afraid of -himself so far. But how to continue here in the enjoyment of his other -advantages and withdraw from the house in which he had been received so -kindly, he did not know. It would be impossible without explanations, -and what explanation could he give? - -“Look you ’ere,” said Paolo, rising in his turn, taking advantage of all -the devices of oratory to move his friend, “lofe, that is one thing; -life, that is another. For a capriccio I say nothing. We all have such; -by times it will seem as though you live not but in possession of the -object; but after, that will pass, and you will laugh, and all will go -on as before.” - -“Hold your tongue; you don’t know anything about it,” said Harry, with a -contemptuous wave of the hand. - -“I have had my experiences like another,” said Paolo, mildly. “I am not -an ignorant. It is for a moment you suffer, you think all is ovare. -But--oh, bah!--when it is ovare so many things remain. There is the -bureau,” said Paolo, counting on his fingers, “there are the events of -the day; there is the table--for you must always eat; there is -society--which is made,” he added sententiously, “of other objects. In -brief, amico mio, there is to live. That must be done all the same. For -the moment it may be hard--but sooner or later the time of calm will -arrive--What then? If it be certain that an hour will come when you -will have had enough, when you will become weary----” - -Harry sat up in his chair. “What are you talking about?” he said. - -With his honest English imagination he did not know what the other -meant. He had never read a French novel in his life (he could not, -indeed, if he had wished), nor any English ones of that sort. According -to him, when a man “fell in love” it was with the intention of marrying -the girl he loved, and living happy ever after. The idea that it would -last only for so long, and that there would come a time when you would -have enough, and be weary--a moment which must arrive sooner or -later--was such a thing as had no meaning to him. Paolo turned, too, -when his friend said this, and gazed at him, startled and wondering. -Suddenly the little Italian became aware that he was speaking another -language, a tongue unknown to Harry. He did not know Harry’s tongue so -far as this went, but being very quick and intelligent he perceived at -once that it was not the same as his, and that in speaking as he did he -had completely missed Harry’s comprehension. This took away from him the -power of speech. How was he to find out Harry’s language? They remained -for a full minute thus, baffled each by each, gazing at each other: -Paolo, small and keen, trying hard to make his friend out; Harry, large, -obtuse, confused, wondering what on heaven and earth this strange little -being could mean. - -“Look here,” he said at last, “I’m English, you know. I don’t follow you -a bit. Perhaps you’re too refined, and all that. You don’t fathom my -difficulty, and I don’t understand in the least what you mean. Here’s -what I want: just listen. I am fond of a girl, but I daren’t tell her -I’m fond of her, because you know I have nothing to marry on, and I am -not such a cur as to ask her to bury herself up for years waiting for -me; and besides, it wouldn’t be handsome to her father, who has been -very kind to me. What am I to do? Ought I to go right away? I don’t want -to do that. Or can you tell me how I’m to put a padlock on my tongue, -and go on seeing her, and never betray myself? No, by Jove! I don’t -think I am strong enough for that.” - -“There is one thing will make it more easy,” said Paolo--he had dived -deep into the records of his own experience to find precedents, but he -found nothing which could throw any light upon so strange a case, and -he was now casting about blindly for something to say--“there is one -thing. This lady, this Signorina--is she then--what shall you call it? -disposed to respond to you?” - -Harry’s face grew crimson. He gave a rapid glance back upon all their -intercourse. He seemed to see Rita’s unconscious, tranquil face. Even -when he had made that foolish speech about taking her to England she had -been moved not a hair’s breadth. She had taken it with perfect calm, as -one who had never thought upon the subject might quite well do. “I don’t -think so,” he said, quickly, not looking his friend in the face. - -“Then it is moche more easy,” said Paolo. “There is nothing to do, amico -mio, but to be silent--what you call hold your tongue: and all will be -ovare. When the lady will respond it is different--when she will give -you a glance, a smile, a permission to say what perhaps ought not to be -said.” - -“There is nothing of the kind in the whole business,” said Harry, -bluntly; “you are thinking of your intrigues, and all that Italian -nonsense. English girls don’t understand it any more than I do.” - -“Then the Signorina--is English?” Paolo ventured here to give vent to a -little laugh. “But you must not be too secure that she understands no -more than you. Perhaps there is in the lady a little Italian blood!” - -“Paolo,” said Harry, “you have the most unreasonable, idiotic, offensive -prejudice against----” - -And here he paused--for had he not been careful all this time to keep in -the background the name of the lady? He stopped, and he looked at Paolo -with curious, anxious, defiant eyes. - -Paolo would have laughed had he dared: but he did not venture to laugh. -It was too serious. “I have no prejudice,” he said. “It may be that I -think a little in Italian, one cannot help one’s thoughts. But then why -will you ask me? If the lady is indifferent where then is the difficulty -of to hold your tongue? But if that is otherwise--listen. The papa, it -is to him one speaks when it is of marriage. Love, that is another -thing. You do not understand, amico,” said Paolo, with a plaintive tone, -“the difference. There is great difference. They are two things -all-together. Marriage,” once more he counted upon his fingers, “that -will mean the papa; love--ah! that will mean the moment, the -opportunity, the response.” - -To these last words Harry paid no attention. He scarcely heard them. But -the others seemed to throw a sudden light upon the whole subject. He -rose up again and resumed his promenade about the room, biting his nails -and knitting his brows. “By Jove,” he said, at last, “Paul-o, you’re not -half such a foolish little beggar as you look. That is the thing to do. -I wonder I never thought of it myself. To be sure, that’s the thing to -do.” - -“What is the thing to do?” Paolo asked, bewildered. But his friend made -him no direct answer. After a good deal more of that pacing up and down, -he came back and patted his counsellor on the back so vigorously that he -almost took away Paolo’s breath. - -“That is the very thing,” Harry said. “You are a clever little beggar -after all. I should never have hit it out all by myself; but I see now, -it’s the right thing to do. Not too easy though; I can’t say that I -shall like it a bit; but one can see in a moment that it’s the right -thing to do.” - -“What is the right thing?” Paolo asked again; but he got no reply. Harry -fell a-musing as he sometimes did, letting the little Italian go on with -talk, to which his friend paid no attention; and afterwards he walked -with Paolo to his rooms, paying just as little regard to what he said. -It was another clear, starlight night, soft and cool as the nights are -in an Italian spring. There was no chill to freeze the blood; but all -was balmy and soft. He went along the streets with their high houses -reaching almost up to the sky, looking up to the narrow lane of radiant -blue above, all living and sweet with stars. He thought his problem over -again, going step by step over the same way which he had traversed -before--and it seemed to him that he had at last found the true and the -only solution. He could not withdraw himself from the Vice-Consul’s -house without an explanation; that would be impossible; therefore the -only thing to be done was to go to the Vice-Consul himself, and tell him -how the case stood. “I cannot be sure of myself if I go on seeing her -every day; therefore I must give up seeing her every day, and you must -know why.” Probably he would not tell his story so briefly as this; -there would be explanations to give, and many digressions probably from -the main theme; but that in effect would be all that Harry would have to -say; and certainly it was the right thing to do. He took it for granted -that Paolo had suggested it, though in reality it was an alternative of -a much less satisfactory kind that Paolo had suggested; but all the rest -that he had said vanished from Harry’s practical mind, leaving this one -piece of advice behind, and no more. Paolo was no fool, though his way -of thinking might not be much like an Englishman’s. Englishmen did not -go to the father first, but to the daughter, to know what their chances -were; but for once in a way the other mode was the best. He took a long -walk after he left his friend, traversing all the streets which now he -knew so well, and further still to where the salt air of the sea blew in -his face, and refreshed his soul. He would not trifle with the occasion, -but go at once to-morrow and get it off his mind. So he said to himself. -And he came home past the house from which he was henceforward to be -banished. It was late, and the sitting-rooms were all dark; but Harry -knew that a little light in one window indicated Rita’s room--probably -the faint little _veilleuse_ which watched over her sleep; and that in -another was the lamp by which the Vice-Consul was smoking his last -cigar. He stood and looked piteously at the house. It had been a kind of -home to him, in one way more than his own home had ever been. Standing -outside in the night it appeared beautiful to him, as never house had -appeared before. He had not appreciated the _bric-à-brac_, or known what -to say about the pictures; but now each article of the furniture -suddenly appeared to him in a new light. It was all beautiful; it was -such a place as a palace might be--a house for a queen; and to think -that he had almost lived in it for so long, and that now he was to enter -there no more! Harry was not like the Peri at the gate of Paradise; he -had a still more pathetic, a heart-rending sense of loss. He had been -there yesterday; but he was not to be there again perhaps for ever. Why -should he go away? and yet he must go away; he must keep himself at a -distance from those dear doors. Slowly there gathered in his eyes a -painful dew; it did not fall in tears, which he would have scorned -himself for shedding, but it blurred and magnified all he saw. Yesterday -so much at home, so familiar in the place, to-morrow with no entrance -possible to him any more! and all by no fault of his or anyone’s; by no -levity on _her_ part, or presumption on his; all unawares, no one -thinking of any danger. It seemed to Harry, standing outside there, as -if there was something very hard in such a wayward accident of fate, as -if some malign spirit must have taken pleasure in twisting the threads -wrongly; in making trouble out of the most innocent situations in life. -He had never meant to go further than liking--no one could help going as -far as liking; but the unlucky fellow, without meaning it, had taken the -step farther, and loved; and now all his card-castle of happiness had -tumbled down, and everything was over. There was nothing wrong in it--no -fault in it one way or another: and yet a great many faults would have -produced less confusion and pain. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -WITH HER FATHER. - - -Next morning Harry went to the office with an air of resolution about -him which no one could have mistaken. He thought the others looked at -him curiously with investigating eyes, which, indeed, was true enough; -for his predecessor there never could make out how it was that the -stranger had gained so much interest with the Consul, and Paolo, who was -the only other person present, was full of the most anxious wonder and -suspense. But, as it happened, Harry was kept so fully occupied all day -that he could not say a word to the Vice-Consul, and his air of -resolution and sense of being wound up for a great crisis, came to -nothing. But he did not go near the Consulate in the evening. Had things -been in their ordinary course he would, in the most natural way, and, -indeed, with a semblance of necessity, have proceeded there to consult -Mr. Bonamy about some matter of business, or to ask directions from him. -But he forbore. He sat in his own rooms all the evening, feeling it -unutterably long, trying to amuse himself with reading, and finding very -little amusement in that somewhat unwonted exercise. He had been -“reading up,” with a great deal of industry and some interest, books -which he had heard discussed in the Vice-Consul’s house, and in this way -had at least procured a good deal of information, the advantage of which -was evident. But Harry had not read for enjoyment, and now that things -had come to this pass, and that he was about to be compelled to give up -the society of the Bonamys, and lose the gratification of pleasing Rita, -it seemed to his practical mind that there was no great reason for -continuing those studies. It was quite likely that he never would live -among such people again, and why should he take so much trouble--trouble -taken with the idea of pleasing them? it was no longer worth his while. -He was driven back to his books indeed by the tedium of the long, -unoccupied evening, for he had no heart to go out, to be waylaid by -Paolo, and have questions put to him which he would find it very -difficult to answer. But he yawned a great deal, and went to bed very -early, and slept badly in consequence, tossing about for two hours and -hearing the melancholy clocks peal. Next day he was resolved he must -speak. Indeed, it would be indispensable that he should, as it was the -day on which Rita received, and he had never yet been absent from her -drawing-room on that special evening. He had a good opportunity this -time, for the Vice-Consul called for him as soon as he appeared after -his luncheon, and bade him bring certain papers to be examined. “I quite -expected you to have brought them last night,” Mr. Bonamy said. “For two -nights we have not seen you, Oliver. Rita was asking me to-day whether -you were ill. I hope you are not ill. There’s no fever here that I know -of; still it is always well to take care.” - -“I am not ill, Sir,” said Harry, colouring high, and then growing pale; -“but there was another reason. I should like to speak to you for a few -minutes, about myself, if you could spare the time.” - -“Certainly I can spare you the time,” said the Vice-Consul, readily; -“but not now, you know. Come to me again as soon as the office is -closed. Shall we talk your business over here, or in the house?” - -“Here, if you please,” said Harry. - -“Here be it, then. Do you know you excite my curiosity? you look so -serious. But I hope it’s nothing disagreeable, nothing to interfere with -our alliance?” said the Vice-Consul, good-humouredly. He thought he knew -exactly what it was. No doubt the family had found him out, and Harry -was about to be recalled to its bosom. This would give Mr. Bonamy -himself a little regret, and he could understand that to leave a place -where everybody had been kind to him would be a sort of trial to the -young man; but at the same time it was far better for him that he should -be reconciled to his family. So he went through his business with a -little gentle interest, looking forward to the _éclaircissement_. It was -like the third volume of a novel to the Vice-Consul, and even something -more than that, more than the mere end of a story which had interested -him--for it would also settle various questions in his mind, and prove -if he had been right or not in the instantaneous opinion which he had -formed about Harry’s concerns. He felt quite sure that he would prove to -have been right. By the time Harry returned to him, after the work of -the afternoon was done, he had made out within himself quite what the -scene was to be. The young man would say: “My father is here;” or “My -brother is here,” as might be; and a hale, hearty old country gentleman, -or a young, ruddy, fresh-coloured youth, like Harry himself, would be -brought in and presented to him, and he would give himself the -gratification of saying, “This is precisely how I expected it would be; -I have been looking for you this past year daily, though I had no notion -who you were.” When Harry came back with the same face of serious -excitement the Consul almost laughed. “Bring them in, bring them in,” he -said, “I have nothing to say against you. You need not be afraid that I -will give you a bad character.” Harry looked at him with that look of -blank astonishment which so often turns into lofty superiority and -disapproval of their seniors’ folly in youthful eyes. - -“Bring--whom in?” he said. - -“Your people, to be sure, my dear Oliver. Come, Oliver, I am not an old -wife; you can’t conceal it from me.” - -“I know nothing about my people,” said Harry, hastily; “I have nothing -more to say about them than I have already told you. Things are exactly -as they were between them and me. What I have got to tell you is a very -different sort of thing. But you will see by it, at least, Sir, that I -have no wish to conceal anything from you.” - -“Bless my soul!” said the Vice-Consul, “what’s the matter? Have you got -into any scrape? Have you come in contact with the police? What is the -matter, my boy?” - -“It is nothing outside of this house, Sir,” Harry said, with a grave -smile; “the police have got nothing to say to it. If it is a scrape it -is one I have got myself into, and I must get myself out of it. Anyhow, -it is not likely to hurt anybody but myself,” and here, in spite of all -his precautions, his lip quivered a little. At this moment, the very -worst for such a strong wave of feeling, it suddenly came over him what -a tremendous change it would be, and how much it would hurt himself--if -nobody else. - -“You alarm me,” said Mr. Bonamy, growing grave in his turn. “My dear -fellow, I hope you feel that I take an interest in everything that -concerns you, and that you may safely confide in me----” - -“Yes, Sir, I am sure of that,” said Harry; and then he added; “all the -more that it concerns you too.” - -Mr. Bonamy pushed away his chair from the table, opened his eyes wide, -and looked at Harry as if he thought him mad. - -“I can’t come to your house any more, Sir,” said Harry, “that’s what I -wanted to tell you. I’ve enjoyed it very much, and it has done me more -good than anything else in my life--but I ought not to do it, and I -can’t do it any longer. I hope you won’t think I am an ungrateful cur; I -don’t think I am that. But I must give it up, Sir, and I hope you’ll -excuse me for it. I’d rather not say any more.” - -“Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul, greatly disturbed, “what is the meaning -of this? Do you mean there is something in your past--something in your -character and actions that makes you unfit to be my visitor? I have -always trusted in your honour. If it’s that, and your conscience has -been quickened to find it out, of course I have nothing more to say.” - -“It’s not that,” said Harry, bluntly. “I am not afraid of my -conscience. It says as much to me, I suppose, as to other people; but -you might hear all it says and welcome. There is nothing against my -character here or elsewhere. You know as much harm of me as there is to -know.” - -“I know no harm of you,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, don’t alarm -me. If you find we don’t suit you--though by your manner I should never -have guessed it--why, then, give us up, my fine fellow, and there’s no -more to be said.” - -Harry laughed a somewhat tremulous laugh. - -“I should think you did suit me,” he said. “I don’t believe I was ever -half so happy before.” - -“Then, in the name of wonder, what does this mean?” the Vice-Consul -cried. - -Harry cleared his throat; his lips were beginning to get parched and his -throat was dry. - -“Did you never hear, Sir,” he said, abruptly, “of a fellow falling in -love--with a girl he’d no business to fall in love with?” - -Mr. Bonamy half rose out of his chair, then changed his mind and dropped -back again. His own face became suffused with colour. A sudden -exclamation came from his lips it spite of himself. - -“Is this what has happened to you?” he said. - -“This is what has happened to me,” said Harry. “I’m very sorry--nobody -can be more sorry--it shuts me out from a great deal I had got to be -proud of, and happy in. I wish I had made any blunder in the world -rather than this; but it’s done, and I can’t help it. So the only thing -I have got to do now is---- well, either to stay away from the house, or -to go away altogether, as you think best.” - -“I suppose then that at my house you run the risk,” said the -Vice-Consul, with suspicious breaks in his words, either of doubt or -excitement, “of meeting--the young lady?” - -Harry did not say a word; but he looked at him fixedly, with a deep -colour flaming over his face. At this the Vice-Consul gazed at him with -an alarmed expression, gradually catching fire too. - -“You don’t mean to say----?” he cried, and then he was silent, and there -ensued a confused and uncomfortable pause. - -“Yes, Sir,” said Harry. He had looked his chief in the face all this -time; but now he avoided the other’s eye, “that is just how it stands. I -told you it was not my fault. I never thought of such a thing. It -never,” he said, putting out his hand to a bundle of papers upon the -table by which he was standing, and turning them vaguely over and over, -“it never--happened to me before.” - -When the Vice-Consul looked at him standing there, with that look of -half-astonished simplicity on his face, and those artless words on his -lips, it was all he could do to keep in an outburst of laughter. He -thought he had never come in contact with so simple-minded, and candid, -and honourable a fellow. He was startled and alarmed, and made uneasy by -his confession; but yet he had the greatest desire to laugh. Yet why -should he laugh? it was serious enough; his lively mind jumped to the -possibility that his Rita might prefer this young stranger to himself. -It would be an extraordinary choice, he could not but think; but yet, -alas! that was how things often were in this strange world. A girl would -prefer a man she had seen three or four times in a ball-room, to the -father whose very existence she was; and nobody would be surprised at -it; it was the course of nature; it was the way of the world. This idea -chilled and alarmed him to the bottom of his heart; but yet he could -hardly help laughing at Harry and his perturbed air. “I never thought of -such a thing--it never happened before.” The Consul was almost too much -amused to take in the seriousness of the event. - -“I presume you have said nothing to her,” he said at last, looking -portentously serious by reason of the inclination to untimely mirth, -which he had to subdue. - -“That is just the thing,” cried Harry, rousing up from his bashful -pre-occupation. “No, I have not spoken--what you would call speaking; -but on Monday night I just dropped a word----” - -“Good Lord!” cried the Vice-Consul. He had no longer any inclination to -laugh; what he was disposed to do was to take the young fellow by the -throat. - -“You can’t be more frightened than I was,” said Harry, ingenuously. “It -was by that I found out. Of course I knew I admired--_her_ more than -anybody I had ever seen; but I had no more notion how far it had -gone---- and then like a fool I began to speak of going home to England, -and how I was sure I could take her all safe if she would go with me. -That was all: I assure you that was all,” cried Harry, discomposed by -Mr. Bonamy’s look and manner. He was alarmed by this look: the -Vice-Consul had risen up, trembling with wrath. - -“I would like to know,” he cried, “what more you could have said!--what -more could you wish to say? And this is what you call love! To betray my -child; to propose death to her--death! Oh, boy, boy, do you know what -you are doing in your folly and simplicity; beguiling her to her death, -and me to---- Good God! why should I always be such a fool? Why did I -have this fellow here?” - -“You are judging me too harshly, Sir,” cried Harry; “you think it was a -great deal worse than really happened. She never took any notice of it; -it hadn’t the least meaning to her. She asked me did I know -something--some physic I suppose,” Harry said, in a kind of parenthesis, -with disdain--“that would make it safe. That was all she thought of it; -but as for me, as soon as I had said it I came to myself. I’ve had a -dreadful time of it since,” he added once more, with that air of -downright sincerity and solemnity which made the Vice-Consul wish to -smile. “I’ve turned over every kind of plan in my mind. Sometimes I’ve -thought of going right away; but that seemed hard, too, when I had just -got settled here. And at the last the right thing seemed just to come -and tell you. Of course I put myself in your hands. I’ll do whatever -you think it proper I should do: give up the office; go away from the -town; anything you please. I don’t want to leave you--or her,” cried -Harry. “God knows! you have been so kind to me!” - -And then the Vice-Consul, hearing the young fellow’s voice falter, and -seeing that he kept his eyes down to conceal the water that had got into -them, felt a little knot in his throat too, and was melted in spite of -himself. - -“Oliver,” he said, “I don’t want to be hard upon you. You said she took -no notice--that is just like her; she is no coquette, my girl; she is -very innocent. I daresay it never occurred to her that you meant -anything.” - -“I don’t think it did, Sir,” Harry said eagerly. Of course he had no -clue to Rita’s retirement to her own room, or the amused consideration -she gave to the subject there. - -“I don’t want to be hard upon you,” Mr. Bonamy repeated, “if that is the -case. Answer me one more thing, Oliver, and answer it on your honour. -Have you any reason to think (that I should have to put such a -question?) that if you had spoken out more plainly, she---- Heavens! I -can’t put it into words.” - -“How could I,” cried Harry, almost provoked, “have reason to think -anything about it, when I never even suspected myself? It was that word -that opened my eyes.” - -And then there was another pause. Harry stood turning over and over that -bundle of papers. He looked at them as if he thought they contained some -secret of state. He took them in his hand as if anxious to know how many -ounces they weighed. His face wore a look of the gravest stolid -seriousness. He had now withdrawn from the consideration of his duty, or -what he ought to do, and put it into another person’s hands. He was -freed of the responsibility, and he had only to wait now to see what he -should be told to do. - -Then once more a sense of the humour of the situation intruded upon its -seriousness in the Vice-Consul’s eyes. His anger and alarm were quenched -in a sense of the absolute simplicity and honesty of the culprit, and a -hope that no harm had been done. Mr. Bonamy began to breathe freely -again, even to smile. - -“Sit down,” he said, “and let us talk this over. I don’t blame you, -Oliver. I can understand that you were not seriously to blame; and, if -no harm is done--I suppose you will promise me that it shall not occur -again.” - -“Well, Sir,” said Harry, “that is just what I should like to be able to -do; but seeing I was such a fool as to do it once, how can I tell that I -may not be a greater fool again? especially as then I did not know -anything about it, whereas I know all about it now.” - -“That is just the reason,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Now you are on your guard, -and you will know when to be watchful. I can’t give you permission to -make love to--my daughter, Oliver. I suppose you did not expect I -could?” - -“Oh, no,” cried Harry, eagerly; “not in the least. I could not, of -course, even if you did, for I have no money. I could no more marry than -I could fly.” - -“Marry!” cried the Vice-Consul. The young man said the word in the most -matter-of-fact way, but it took away the other’s breath. “Do you know -what you are doing?” he cried; “you are putting a knife to my throat. -Marry! That means that if you could you would break up this home of mine -in which you confess you have been received so kindly. You would rob me -of all I have. You would take from me everything that makes life -precious. For what, young man, for what? Because you admire a pretty -face! You don’t know any more of her--I am not sure that you are able to -appreciate any more of her. But she is everything in the world--she is -all that makes life worth living--to me.” - -Harry threw down the bundle of papers and looked across the table with -the intensest astonishment. “Do you mean,” he said, “that you don’t -intend her ever to be married at all? Is nobody to have the chance? Is -she always to be kept up in one place, and never to settle, nor have her -own choice and her own life?” - -Mr. Bonamy felt as if he were being stoned--one solid, heavy fact tossed -at him after another; and looked at his questioner with a sort of gasp -between the blows. He faltered after a while, “She is very young. She -has everything that her heart can desire. Why should she not be content, -at least for years to come, in her father’s house?” - -“I always understood, Sir,” said Harry, with his usual -straightforwardness, “that the right thing for girls was to marry when -they were young, and that parents were supposed to wish it.” - -“To scheme for it, perhaps?” said Mr. Bonamy, furiously, “and put out -all sorts of snares to catch young fellows like you--eh? To lay traps -for you, and lead you on, and give you encouragement and opportunity, -and so forth? Perhaps you think that’s what I’ve been doing--eh? God -forgive me,” he said, “in my day I’ve said that sort of thing, and -believed it myself; I’ve sneered and scoffed like the rest--and now I’ve -got my punishment. You think there is nothing so fine for a girl as to -get married--eh?” - -Harry was struck with consternation by this attack; but yet, feeling -that he had right on his side, he stood his ground. “I am not saying -anything about _you_, Sir,” he said, “but surely it is thought the best -thing that could happen. I’ve always heard it. Fathers and mothers, you -know, Sir, don’t generally live as long as their children--at least, -that is what is supposed--and they like to see their daughters settled, -don’t they, before they die?” - -This was what the French would call a brutal speech--for, in the first -place, it was true; and then Mr. Bonamy was at an age which seemed old -to Harry, but rather young than otherwise to himself, and he was not at -all pleased to have it taken for granted that he must shortly be going -to die. Yes, of course Rita would outlive him, would live long, he -hoped, after him; but still the idea that there was any need to marry -her off in haste, lest he might die and leave her before she -was--settled, was most repugnant to him; it went to his heart, wounding -him with a possibility which he had no desire to think of; and it made -him hot and angry, as if it had been a personal insult. No one likes to -be told that he has come to a period of life at which it is more likely -than otherwise that he will shortly die, and that it is very necessary -to take precautions against that event. It was all he could do to keep -from bursting out upon Harry, crushing him with a bitter rejoinder. He -to address his benefactor thus! He to speak in this tone to the man who -had received him when nobody else would, who had lifted him out of all -the difficulties of a stranger, and opened not only his office, which -gave him bread, but his house, which gave him friends, and position, and -everything a young man could wish for! These words were rushing to Mr. -Bonamy’s lips, when fortunately a sense of his personal dignity, and of -the impropriety of any such demonstration, came in and stopped him. -Harry’s speech, after all, was good common sense, just the sort of thing -that everybody says; the world was on that side of the question. Perhaps -prudence and the foresight which love itself ought to possess was on -that side too. So he was silent, repressing the first instinct of reply. -When he was able to do it, he answered with as much self-possession as -he could muster. - -“I admire your prudence, Mr. Oliver. I hope you will always see your own -duties with the same clearness which you display about those of others; -and I have no doubt you are quite right; but it is a question which I -don’t care to discuss. Let me say, before we finish this talk, that I -think you have behaved very honourably, and as a gentleman should; and I -quite accept your reason for coming to my house much less frequently. I -will make your excuses to my daughter; and nothing that has passed need -make any difference in our official relations,” he added, looking up -with a smile that was sharp and cold, not like his usual sunshine, “in -that respect there is no possible reason why everything should not go on -as before.” - -“Very well, Sir,” said Harry, getting up with some confusion. The -conversation had been going on so long, and so much less indignation -than he expected had been in the Vice-Consul’s air at the beginning, -that this sudden sentence confounded him. He was quite ready, when he -began, to be taken at his word; but somehow he was not now so ready; the -bitterness had seemed to be past, and he had hoped that the indulgent -and fatherly friend before him would have found some way by which he -should still be permitted to come and go. But now all at once Harry -found himself, in his own words, “shut up,” and had nothing to do but to -stumble to his feet as quickly as he could, and take himself off, much -subdued and astonished, to his desk in the outer office--where he gave -his mind to his business, not too clearly, but with as much devotion as -was practicable, for the rest of the day. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -RITA’S OPINION. - - -These two men, however, though they were disposed to think themselves -the chief, or, indeed, only persons concerned, were by no means the -masters of the situation, as they supposed. Rita took Harry’s absence -from her drawing-room quite lightly at first, so lightly that her -father’s mind was entirely relieved. He had been afraid that her -astonishment, if nothing else, would have been great, and that she would -have asked him a hundred questions--questions which it might have given -him some trouble to answer. But she took it quite quietly, and said -nothing about it for a week or two, till the Vice-Consul was of opinion -that all danger was passed. About this time, however, Rita, by one of -those accidents which occur perversely to heighten the embarrassment of -every domestic crisis, met Harry suddenly on one of her walks, coming -upon him round a corner without any warning to either party. Her usual -attendant, Benedetta, was with the young lady, who looked up brightly -with surprise and pleasure, and held out her hand. - -“What has become of you all this time?” she said, in her kind, soft -voice. - -On Harry, for his part, the effect of so suddenly coming in sight of -her, and of her frank accost, was too remarkable to escape Rita’s quick -eye. He fell backward a step, swerved from his course, gave a glance -round him, as if in search of some way of escape, then, seeing none, -took her offered hand gingerly, just touched and dropped it, his face -flushing crimson, his voice faltering. - -“Oh, I am very well, thank you,” was the answer he made; and then stood -and stared at her for a moment, and, without replying to any of her -questions, went on again confusedly, leaving her standing still gazing -after him in a state of mingled dismay and consternation. - -“What can have happened to him?” Rita said to herself, unconsciously -aloud: and “I think the gentleman must be mad,” said tranquilly the -good Benedetta, who thought the English were all a little insane, and -that it was nothing much out of the way. But that evening when dinner -was over it was the Vice-Consul’s turn to be undeceived. - -“Papa,” said Rita, suddenly (she had let him have his dinner first, -which showed consideration), “what is the matter with Mr. Oliver?” - -The Vice-Consul was like a ship at sea, into whose innocent hulk a -sudden broadside is poured without any sort of warning; he dipped his -sails, so to speak, all his timbers thrilled and shivered. He had not -been in the least prepared for any such assault. - -“Oliver?” he said, trying to put on an exaggerated look of innocence, -“Oliver? what’s the matter with him? What should be the matter with him? -He is all right for anything I know.” - -“He is not all right,” said Rita; “he has not been here for a fortnight, -he who used to come almost every night; and you should have seen him -when I met him to-day; I thought he would have run away. He tried it, I -declare. He looked all round to see if he could not make his escape, -and when I cried out, ‘What has become of you?’ he said, ‘Very well, -thank you!’ Was there ever anything so absurd? I like him for that, he -is so English, and so absurd.” - -“I don’t see anything absurd about it,” said the Vice-Consul, with a -very grave countenance. - -“Don’t you, papa? you are growing dull, you have been very dull for some -time back. Since Mr. Oliver ran away! Perhaps it is because of that. -Perhaps it is the same thing that has affected you both.” - -“You pay me a high compliment,” said Mr. Bonamy, nettled, “to think that -my dulness, as you are pleased to call it, should result from the -withdrawal of Oliver; he is not such a shining light.” - -“No, he is not a shining light,” said Rita, “he is perhaps just a little -dull himself; that is why I like him. He never tries to say clever -things, he is never a bit brilliant, he never even pretends to -understand when he doesn’t understand, but looks at you with nice, -round, wide-open, surprised sort of eyes. That is just what I like him -for. He is always himself.” - -To this the Vice-Consul made no reply, but, hoping to change the -conversation, said, “By the way, I’ve got you that book you were -talking so much about; nobody had it here, so I sent to Paris----” - -“That was very good of you, papa; but I can’t let you run off like that. -Let us finish one subject before we begin another. What is the matter -with Mr. Oliver? Why did he come every night, and then leave off coming -all at once?” - -“What a fool I was to think I was going to be let off so easily!” Mr. -Bonamy breathed to himself. “My dear Rita,” he said, “I don’t see why -you should be so anxious about Oliver. It was a mistake having him here -so much at the first.” - -“Why was it a mistake? you never thought it was a mistake till now. What -has happened? I am more and more puzzled with every word you say. Papa!” -cried Rita, stamping her little foot on the floor, “don’t trifle with -me, for I am determined to find it out.” - -“Then you must just find it out your own way,” cried the Vice-Consul, -angry with the anger of impotence; for he knew very well he could not -resist her, and that it was only a matter of minutes how long she would -take to find the necessary clue. - -“Do you mean to say you will not tell me?” cried Rita, with wondering, -wide-open eyes. - -“My dear child,” said the unfortunate Vice-Consul, “you are making it of -far too much importance. What does it matter about this young fellow one -way or the other? He came, he has gone; we ought not, perhaps, to have -given him so readily the run of the house.” - -“Has anything--wrong--been found out about him, papa?” - -“Bless my soul, no! nothing wrong; on the contrary!” cried poor Mr. -Bonamy; “for I won’t take away a man’s character behind his back--he has -behaved like a gentleman, quite like a gentleman; about that there is -not a word to say.” - -“Of course,” said Rita, “he would behave like a gentleman, for he is a -gentleman; but on what pretext, then, have you banished him from the -house?” - -“Rita,” cried her father, “I wish you would not talk of things you don’t -understand! Am I the sort of man to banish a young fellow from my house? -If you _will_ know, it was he that did it himself.” - -Rita opened her eyes wider than ever. She laughed, though a little -angry colour came to her face. - -“I suppose it was he, then, who disapproved of us?” she said. - -What was the Vice-Consul to do? - -“That is nonsense,” said he, “he neither disapproved of us, nor did I -disapprove of him; but there might be other reasons. We thought, both of -us, both he and I, that it was as well--he should not come--so -often--for a time, at least.” - -“So often? but he never comes at all,” cried the inquisitive girl, “and -when I met him he wanted to run away. Don’t you see all this is absurd, -papa? If you want me to believe you, tell me the right reason. I will -not be satisfied till you tell me the right reason. Do you think I can -be taken in with pretences of that sort?” - -“Rita, you annoy me very much, you distress me. I don’t know why you -should drive me into a corner like this,” the Vice-Consul said -piteously. - -“But I want to drive you into a corner, I must drive you into a corner; -for I insist now upon knowing what it is. I might have let it pass -before, but now I insist upon it, you must tell me, papa.” - -The poor man gave a deep sigh. - -“You take a very unfair advantage,” he said; “you compel me to betray -poor Oliver and to distress myself. And I warn you that it will make you -blush, that you will feel very uncomfortable.” - -“I don’t mind blushing,” Rita said; and as she spoke a sudden suffusion -of heat and colour came all over her. She blushed from the crown of her -head to the soles of her feet. It was a strange sensation, but it was -not altogether disagreeable. The girl had as little idea of any painful -or shameful occasion for blushing as if she had been a baby; and she met -the father’s eyes quite steadily all the same. - -“I never saw a creature so pertinacious,” said poor Mr. Bonamy. “Well, -then, if you must know. It is because of you that young Oliver is not -coming here any more.” - -“Because of me!” She was too much astonished to blush now, and then she -had already had her blush out. - -“Just because of you. He has been so silly as to fall in love with you, -and feeling that it would be dishonourable to me to continue to come -here, this being the case, he has explained it all and withdrawn. There -is now the short and the long of it, Rita. You have no right to say a -word against poor Oliver. He has paid you, as people say, the highest -compliment a man can pay a woman, and he has acted in the most -honourable way to me; feeling that he cannot be quite sure of not -betraying himself if he continues to come, he has ceased to come. He -would have left the place altogether if I had asked such a sacrifice of -him. He has behaved in the most gentlemanly, honourable way. He tells me -he did say something, but he did not know whether you understood it or -not.” - -Rita was struck dumb. She sat and gazed at her father silently while he -spoke, too curious and strongly interested even to be abashed by this -strange news. She blushed no more. Having paid that one tribute of -startled maidenliness to the new revelation, she was too much impressed -and overwhelmed by it for any lighter feeling. She sat in an attitude of -the most absorbed attention, her eyes fixed upon her father’s face, her -lips a little apart, the breath coming quickly. She was astonished, yet -not so much astonished as overawed, penetrated by the news. When her -father ceased speaking, she continued the same rapt aspect of attention. -He thought she would have been shame-faced, blushing, shy of it, unable -to look him in the face; but he was not prepared for this curious, -absorbed interest. By and by she repeated to herself softly, “So silly -as to fall _in_--_love_:--with me--would have left the place -altogether.” Then she made a pause, and, putting her hands softly -together, said, with a sigh of satisfaction at having found out one -problem: “Then that was what he meant!” - -“What was what he meant? He told me you took no notice; he thought you -hadn’t understood what he said.” - -“I did not understand it,” said Rita, softly, “I only wondered. It was -about going to England----” - -“Rita, Rita! you would not, for a new lover, a man you scarcely know, a -being quite untried--you would not break my heart and go and risk your -life--your life that is above all things precious to me?” - -Rita scarcely seemed to hear this interpolation--this interruption of -her thoughts. - -“That there would be no danger, he said, and he would take care--he -would take care--that was not much; but I did wonder. I will tell you -the truth, papa. I had a great anxiety to know what he meant.” - -“Young idiot!” her father said, with hotly-rising wrath, “he meant -nothing--nothing, my love! only a brag that he could do more, and know -better--a boy, an uninstructed fool--than those who have watched over -you all your life.” - -Even this made no impression upon the girl. “It is curious,” she said, -still to herself, “very curious--quite different from--the other way. I -suppose this is the English way? Benedetta always says the English are -half mad. I suppose instead of asking about the _dot_, and that kind of -thing, you know, papa--I suppose this is the English way?” - -“It is the foolish way,” cried the father. “Come, it is nothing to you, -Rita. You don’t mean to say--no, no, my darling; I know better--you -don’t mean to make me believe that you, so clever as you are, and -knowing so much, could think twice about any notion that came into the -noddle of such an empty-headed young man.” - -“Is he empty-headed?” said Rita, reflectively. “He does not know much, -that is quite true; he is not a bit clever; but I think it is a little -unjust to call him empty-headed. He was always just himself; he never -pretended to anything else. Sometimes he understood--very often he -didn’t; but he never pretended, papa. Don’t you think it is a little -hard upon him?” she said, turning round upon her father suddenly, and -fixing him with her large, serious, impartial eyes. “Don’t you think it -is hard to take advantage of what he has said himself, and turn him out -like this?” - -“I have not turned him out. Rita, this is mere folly. I will not have -you led away by your feelings. If any man were to kill me, I believe you -would say he didn’t mean it, poor fellow, it would be hard upon him to -hang him. Come, child, let us be done with this.” - -“But, papa,” said Rita, “there is no evidence against him but his own -confession. I have often heard you say that one should not take -advantage of that. Kill you--who wants to kill you? There could not be a -more different question. I am not led away by my feelings. I have no -feelings but right and justice. I don’t think you ought to have taken -that advantage of him. It must be very hard upon him, papa, to shut him -out. Think! he will have nowhere else to go to. I dare say he spends -his evenings in the cafés. He can’t know what to do with himself at -nights.” - -“As if I had anything to do with his entertainment in the evening! I -wish to heaven he had never set foot within my house!” - -“Ah! but that is past praying for. I don’t see why you should wish such -a thing; but still, if you do wish it, it is a pity, for it is too late. -He _has_ set foot within your house, and we have a responsibility about -him. We have a responsibility,” said Rita, very gravely shaking her -head. “He is young, and he is very simple-minded, and he might, as you -are always saying, take a wrong turn; and then whose fault would it be?” - -“Not mine,” cried the persecuted man, “certainly not mine--that I’ll -swear to. Am I the fellow’s keeper? Rita, for heaven’s sake be done with -all that nonsense. If you can talk of nothing more sensible, you had -much better go to bed.” - -“Yes,” said Rita, calmly, going on with her argument, “you are his -guardian in a kind of way, papa. It was you that took him up first. You -did it of your own free will, nobody persuaded you. You settled him -here, and you opened your doors to him, and said, Come on Sunday, come -as often as you please. Do you think you are justified in casting him -away now, as if it was of no importance? never thinking where he will go -instead, or if he has anywhere else to go to? Do you think you are -justified? for no other reason than that you think he might perhaps do -or say something you would not like? I do not.” - -“Then you think, I suppose, that I ought to have him back and beg his -pardon, and tell him he is quite free to make love to my daughter if he -likes? Bless my soul! why should I interfere with such a pretty -amusement? That’s what you think. Rita, don’t sit there, my dear, -talking nonsense: say no more about this young fool, but go to bed.” - -“Papa, I am sorry to see you are so deaf to sound argument,” said Rita, -with judicial composure; “you always bring in the personal question, as -if that had anything to do with it. On the face of it, to deprive a -stranger of the benefits you have been heaping upon him, and leave him -in a moment to his own resources, all because you are afraid of a -distant and unlikely thing he thinks he wants to do, is dreadfully -unjustifiable; my dear papa,” said Rita, looking down from the heights -of youthful superiority, “I never expected to find you inaccessible to -reason, especially on such an important point as this.” - -“Inaccessible to fiddlesticks,” the Vice-Consul said; but he was -entirely shaken in his conviction of having done what was right and -kind, both to one party and the other. He got up and walked about the -room. He was a man who wanted moral support; he wanted to be approved -of, and to feel that the opinion of those around him went with his. And -especially he had learned to prop himself up by Rita’s opinion. He was -always uneasy when she differed from him. Even in this matter, which -concerned herself, and in which her judgment might justly be doubted, he -was not comfortable. He was unfortunately too accessible to reason, so -that nothing could be more unjust than this reproach. “Go to bed, my -love; go to bed,” he said, faintly. “It is getting very late; another -time we can talk of this.” - -“Then do you think, papa,” said Rita, still magisterial, “that it is -right to postpone a matter which concerns other people’s comfort to -another time?” - -“Don’t worry me to death,” said Mr. Bonamy, stretching out his hands -with a half-despairing appeal. “I never thought I was going to be led -into such a discussion--don’t worry me to death!” - -But she showed no signs of mercy, and there is no telling what might -have happened to Her Majesty’s humble representative had he not been -called away at this moment to receive a messenger with despatches from -the Consulate-General and important instructions. Mr. Bonamy hurried -away with a sigh of thankfulness; never was culprit suddenly delivered -from the bar more glad of his escape. He knew, indeed, that it was only -for a time: but yet even for a time it was well to get out of her hands. -At least he could collect materials for his defence. - -Rita, for her part, after sitting for some time waiting for her father’s -return, and sharpening up various arguments for his complete -discomfiture, got tired, and made up her mind to take his advice and go -to bed. But she had a great deal too much to think about to have any -desire to go to sleep. When she had sent Benedetta away she sat by her -window in her white dressing-gown, with her hair about her shoulders, a -romantic little figure, and felt a little like Juliet. She had never -felt like Juliet before. She had, even with the flippancy of her age, -been disposed to think of Juliet as of a very forward and bold young -woman. People who have been accustomed to hear of marriage as a matter -of convenience, so much _dot_, so many advantages, and who have even -been negotiated for in this way, are apt to think but poorly of that -ideal impersonation of youthful passion. But now that Romeo had appeared -on the scene, Rita, at the window, thought upon Juliet with a little -secret wonder, and awe, and pleasure. Romeo--well, there is no evidence -that Romeo was clever. He was only one of the gallants of the period, -one of the swash-bucklers who sometimes talk just as badly as their -kind, though often they forget themselves and talk Shakespeare. There -was nothing extraordinary about him till love and the poet got hold of -him, and put divine words into his mouth. Very likely that gay Mercutio -was the cleverest of the two. Sitting thus at her window, Rita all at -once was sensible of a figure on the pavement looking up at the house -from the opposite side of the street. There was nothing but a little -night-light burning on a table in the corner, nothing to betray her -figure where she sat. And nothing could be more common-place and absurd -than that Harry should come there and stare at the windows. He was not -by any means in the habit of doing so; but yet when he was out, taking -his forlorn walk, he would allow himself to take that turn through the -street in which the Consulate was, and fix a wistful eye upon it for a -moment. When Rita saw him she darted back with a movement of fright and -wonder, and mirth and shyness, all in one; and sat out of sight for a -few moments, panting, blushing, with the same overwhelming flush of -sudden warmth which had come over her for the first time when her father -spoke to her. Then, in the dark and the silence, she gave vent to a -little low laugh, at which she was frightened when she heard it, and -became suddenly as solemn and serious as an old picture. Then she -returned shyly to the corner of the window, peeping, though she ought to -have known that it was impossible he could see her. The figure opposite -was in the act of passing on; it gave a long look back as it went slowly -away, lingering as if reluctant to be out of her neighbourhood. Rita -drew back this time with a kind of awe. She knew he would have thought -no more of climbing the garden wall, however high it had been--if there -had been a garden wall and a balcony, and she out upon it discoursing to -the moon--than Romeo did. “But there is the difference,” Rita said to -herself; “he may be in love with me, but I am not in love with him. I -would never stand out there and sigh Romeo, Romeo. No,” she went on, -with a little shriek of a laugh, “not Romeo. Oh, Isaac, Isaac, wherefore -art thou Isaac? That is too ridiculous; it is all too ridiculous. I -don’t wonder at what Benedetta says, that the English are half-mad.” - -And then she sat a long time in the dark, and thought, and thought. It -was all very new and very strange. It roused her lively faculties with -the pleasure of a novel sensation. She had taken her proposals of -marriage with sedate contempt, and announced authoritatively to her -father on each occasion that she had no intention of ever marrying, and -that she liked him much better than any other man in the world, an -assurance which the poor Vice-Consul took great comfort in, though it -was not possible that any man in his senses could accept it as a matter -of serious faith. But now Rita could not deny to herself that this -strange new bewildering sensation was a pleasant one. Her former -suitors would no doubt have gladly adopted it had it been thought that -such an easy mode of love-making would have been permitted; but in their -cases it would not have moved the foolish girl. To see somebody standing -silent on the other side of the street, doing nothing to call her -attention, not wishing to be noticed, doing it only for a little comfort -to himself, was entirely different. That was the English way, she -thought with awe. To be able to give love up for the sake of honour, and -yet to have it so much at heart as to be driven to come and look at the -house in which the beloved object lived, standing about alone in a cold -night--Rita’s whole heart was penetrated by the sincerity, the modesty, -the self-restraint, yet self-abandonment, which were English, only -English, nothing else. It was not in the least a cold night: Harry -outside felt it to be warm and genial: but there was a cool little -night-breeze lifting the curtains, and she strove to call it cold to -heighten the effect. This was how the Vice-Consul had mismanaged -matters. He was not a happy man as he read his despatches; but he had no -idea of the mischief which was going on under cover of the night. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -A LOVER’S ORDEAL. - - -Rita said nothing more to her father on this subject for a day or two, -and the poor man, deceived once more, began to believe that it had made -little impression upon her, and was to be allowed to pass as of no -particular importance. He had even begun to congratulate himself on the -beneficial effects of his system of training, and the knowledge of the -world which her early initiation into life had given her. “Had I brought -Rita up as most girls are brought up,” he said to himself; “had she been -fresh from a convent, for instance, like some of her friends, or shut up -indoors as Italian girls are, her head would have been turned by the -first mention of a lover. But she has seen a great deal, though she is -so young. In our position she could not help seeing a great deal. She -knows how to discriminate, and can judge what is what. What a good thing -that I did not follow the advice of all these ladies, but was bold -enough to trust to my girl’s innocence and bring her up my own way!” -Thus artlessly did the Vice-Consul console himself. And his mind was a -great deal easier; for before he was always nervous lest she should -question him about Harry, and afraid of betraying himself, even afraid -of letting Rita perceive that there was something to betray. Now that he -had made a clean breast and got it over, his mind was relieved, and he -felt that he could carry his head as high as usual, and need not be -afraid to look any girl in the face. For the first day he rejoiced with -trembling, but after that had passed began to feel that he had really -secured his footing, and might take comfort that the danger was over. -Poor Vice-Consul! He had but just allowed this sensation of pleasure to -enter his mind when Rita, looking up at him suddenly from a book in -which she had all the air of being completely absorbed, addressed him -suddenly as follows-- - -“Papa! I have been thinking over what you told me the other day--What -is the matter?” she added, interrupting herself. - -“Nothing, nothing,” said poor Mr. Bonamy, faintly. He had been lying -back in a very comfortable chair, whiffing gently at intervals a mild -cigarette, and giving himself up to the comfort, the ease of being done -with a subject in which he had foreseen trouble. When his daughter began -to speak, a presentiment of danger awoke in him, and he started up in -his chair when she had said these words. “Nothing, nothing,” he -repeated, letting himself drop again, but alas, with what different -feelings; with the languor of a conflict foreseen, in which he knew he -should be worsted. “What have you been thinking about, Rita?” - -“About what you told me the other day. Of course it was not just an -ordinary thing that one could think nothing more about. Poor Mr. Oliver! -I think he has been badly treated. I want you to tell him just to come -as usual. He must be on his guard, you know; but in any case he would be -on his guard after speaking to you. He must not suppose that I know -anything about it.” - -“But, my dear,” said the Vice-Consul, with a troubled face, “I don’t -think that would do at all; he would think that he had my permission -to--to pay you his addresses, as people used to say?” - -“What are addresses?” said Rita, with much appearance of innocence. “You -must tell him, of course, that there is to be nothing of that kind; but -only just that he is to come as before. I don’t see that it need do him -any harm--I mean any further harm,” said the girl, correcting herself. -She spoke with unusual airiness and carelessness, so lightly indeed that -her indifference had the aspect of being somewhat studied. - -“Him--harm! that was not the question,” the perplexed father said. - -“I hope you don’t mean to infer that it would do _me_ any harm?” said -Rita, turning upon him with a smile of superb disdain. She even laughed -a little at the folly of the idea, opening and shutting a fan which she -held in her hand. “That would be too ridiculous--too ridiculous,” she -said. - -“But, my dear child, you are young and inexperienced, and--” - -“Don’t insult me, please, papa,” she said, fanning herself. If she had -been fifty she could not have looked more superior to any such -temptation. “And, on the other hand,” she added, “I don’t see why poor -Mr. Oliver should be punished, positively punished for liking me. It is -not a sin to like me. Of course he must learn to keep it to himself; it -will be a good lesson in self-control--which everybody is the better -for,” said this young oracle, “and especially, as I have always heard, -young men.” - -This wisdom took away the Vice-Consul’s breath. “That is very true:” he -said “but I am not at all sure that this is a safe way of teaching it. I -think, if it is the same to you, Rita--” - -“But it is not the same to me,” she cried, impatiently. “If you will not -set poor Mr. Oliver right and do him justice, I think I will go and pay -that visit my aunt Ersilia always wants me to make her. You said -yourself I must go one day or other. I will go now.” - -Now if there was one thing more than another which Mr. Bonamy was afraid -of, it was this visit to her aunt Ersilia, her mother’s Italian sister, -with which she threatened him from time to time. He said hurriedly, “I -don’t think this is a good time for going further south, Rita. Of -course, if you wish it so much, I will gladly remove the embargo on -poor Oliver, who is a very good, honest sort of fellow; but I can’t have -him tormented, poor boy--and you must promise to be very distant with -him, which is the kindest thing you can do.” - -“But not too distant, papa,” said Rita; “for I think it a great deal -better that he should suppose I do not know. Far better. I will behave -to him just as usual. I will withdraw gradually, bit by bit, that he may -not feel too much difference. Indeed, unless he is different to me, I -don’t see why I should be different to him. Of course he will be on his -guard. You see he _knows now_. Naturally he will be more careful. He -will understand that if you let him come back he is upon his honour. So, -on the whole, I will make very little difference. I think it is far -better that everything should have the look of being just the same as -before.” - -With this Mr. Bonamy was obliged to be satisfied. He had known very well -when the discussion began that Rita’s will, whatever it might be, was -the thing that would be done. He had in his own mind a great many -troubled reflections, considering how he was to do it, so as not to -excite false hopes or vain expectations in the young man’s mind; but it -was, from the moment when she declared her sovereign will, a foregone -conclusion. He had not resolved the question how it was to be done, up -to the time he went into his office in the morning, and then thought it -best to leave it to chance and the inspiration of the moment. When he -sent for Harry to speak with him he had still but a very faint idea what -to say. The young man came in looking somewhat dull and depressed, as he -did always now, and no longer expectant of anything better, as he had -been at the first. It was a moment of leisure, and the Vice-Consul had -the air of a man with something disagreeable rather than something -pleasant to say. His look was artificial, and the smile which adorned -his face was forced and uncomfortable. - -“Come in, Oliver, come in,” he said, with an air of affected geniality. -Harry thought he was going to receive his dismissal; he did not think -that anything less could give his kind and friendly patron an aspect so -little natural. “Sit down,” said the Vice-Consul, “I have something to -say before business begins this afternoon. Oliver, I have been going -through quite a passage of arms on your account.” - -“On my account?” said Harry, feeling as if his heart stopped beating; he -thought within himself, that this passage of arms must have been with -some of the authorities of the F. O., who perhaps had been stirred up to -ask what a stranger, without recommendations, was doing there. It seemed -to him that the next thing which would be said must be, “I have no -further occasion for your services,” and braced himself for these words. - -“Don’t be frightened; yes, you look frightened,” said Mr. Bonamy, still -with that false geniality, “but no harm has come of it. You met--my -daughter--the other day.” - -“Yes.” Harry’s heart re-commenced beating, and went so fast that it -almost choked him. “It was an accident, Sir; I did not see Miss Bonamy -till I was close upon her, I could not escape.” - -“Yes, she told me. And she asked what had become of you, and you -answered ‘Very well, thank you!’ You will allow that was strange. No -doubt she had been much puzzled by your disappearance before, and she -assailed me directly what was the meaning of it? I had to say all sorts -of things, that you were too busy to come, that you were otherwise -engaged, and I don’t know what; but the short and the long of it is, -Oliver, that, if you want to keep her from knowing all about it, you -must begin to come back again. Things cannot go on as they are now -without arousing her suspicions. This is her night, you know; you must -look in for an hour. Of course I don’t want to enter into explanations -with her,” said the Vice-Consul, becoming more at ease now he had made -out his statement, and done it, he thought with some complacence, very -cleverly. “You must really, by way of supporting what I have been -obliged to say, look in to-night.” - -Harry’s heart was making up tremendously now for its momentary pause. He -felt as if it must be audible all over the house. A flush of warmth went -over him. He spoke with little breaks in his voice, so much excited and -disturbed was he. - -“If you--have no objections, Sir. It cannot be but--a favour to me.” - -“That’s a good fellow,” cried the Vice-Consul relieved. “I was afraid -you would tell me it was too painful, and leave me in the lurch.” - -“If I did that, Sir,” said Harry, “I should be a worthless creature -indeed, however much it might cost me; but this--this---- If you have -no objections, Sir--you can’t have any doubt that I----” - -Here he stopped, not knowing what to say more. - -“You must understand, Oliver,” said Mr. Bonamy, gravely, “that if I have -no objections it is because I don’t want to enter into explanations with -Rita; and then I have missed you, I would never deny that. But you must -not suppose, because of this, that I mean you, you know, to depart from -our--bargain, or to do anything to change the position. In short, I -don’t intend, Oliver, that you should take advantage of the change -to--in short, to----” - -This was not very explanatory, but Harry hastened to reply as if it had -been the clearest statement in the world. - -“You may be sure I will take no advantage of the change,” he said. - -“Well, that is just what I expected from you,” said the Vice-Consul, -falling into his natural tone; “but, my dear fellow,” he added, with a -little alarm, “I must be sure that you can depend upon yourself. You -told me you were afraid you would betray your feelings if you continued -to come; you told me even that you had done so, or almost done so----” - -“Ah, Sir,” cried Harry, “that was when I found myself out! I know -exactly all about it now, and I am on my guard.” - -“Bless me,” said the Vice-Consul, “that is exactly what----” here he -stopped short with the guiltiest look. He was just about to say--what -Rita said. - -“You need not have any fear on my account,” said Harry: and then he -paused a little, and added with feeling, “and I am proud that you have -confidence in me. I will do nothing to shake it; you may be sure of -that. I should be a poor creature indeed if my heart did not respond to -such trust.” - -This was a very fine speech for Harry. He was carried altogether beyond -himself by the emergency. These last lonely evenings had been wonderful -teachers for him. He had learned to read, he had learned to understand. -He had even learned many things more than reading and understanding in -these days of solitude. The thought of going back to her, to that little -world in which she reigned, was delightful to him, but he wondered what -change there would be in it to balance the strange change in his own -breast. It seemed to him that he was a new man, with deeper feelings -and an expanded mind. And she? Would she just be the same, and all the -things and people round her? Harry did not want her to be the least -different. He thought she was perfect, the most wonderful of all beings; -but he felt himself so much altered that he was excited by the thought -that she might be changed too. He went away from his audience not -knowing whether he walked on solid earth or air. Certainly he would not -take advantage; unquestionably he would be upright and honest, and bind -himself as with ropes rather than betray his kind friend’s confidence; -but with all this he was very much excited, and a glow of warmth and -hopefulness began to circulate in his veins. The new concession meant no -change in the circumstances; this the Vice-Consul had been anxious to -impress upon him; and he was equally anxious to assent, to assure Rita’s -father on the other hand that he expected nothing, scarcely desired -anything except this trust in him. But, nevertheless, it would be -impossible to deny that a something of hope, a trembling yet happy -expectation, had come into his heart. - -How carefully he dressed himself that night! Never in all his life had -he made so careful a toilette before. And Paolo, having heard what had -happened (which Harry, reticent as he was, could not keep from him), was -excited too, and came and sat by him while he dressed, and wanted to -help him, as if they had been two girls. Paolo ran out and bought him a -bouquet for his button-hole. He brought in a fresh bottle of -eau-de-Cologne. He was very anxious to lend him something to wear--his -studs, which were little cameos set in gold, or a ring, with a doubtful -gem in it, of which he was very proud, thinking it a genuine antique. -“It is not brilliant like a diamond,” said Paolo, “but it is art, which -is more precious, and pleases much to the Signorina. Take it, amico mio, -you have no ring, which is an absence that is felt; and the studs, that -will make your appearance so much more perfect--what you call finished.” -Harry rejected these aids to the effectiveness of his dress, but he took -great pains about his tie, and rebrushed his coat himself, and gave -particular attention to the arrangement of his hair. He said to himself, -as he walked along in the summer dusk, that all this was very foolish, -that he was not on his promotion, when it might have been wise to make -the best of all his advantages, that he was going only because he was -nobody, because the Vice-Consul was not afraid of him, and thought it -wiser to run the risk of him than to disturb Rita’s mind about any such -petty suitor. It was very much like giving him the crumbs from the -table, but he was willing to accept these, or anything. He went into the -lighted room with his heart beating. Several of the ladies who were -_habituées_ exclaimed on his entrance, and made haste to tell him that -they had thought he was gone altogether, and to ask where he had been. -Rita took no part in these questions, but she gave him her left hand as -a sign of friendship, and smiled and nodded to him without stopping her -conversation with somebody else. Indeed, she treated him as if there had -been no break in their intercourse, as though they had met yesterday and -were to meet again to-morrow. This pleased Harry, and yet it wrung his -heart. Was he of so little importance to her that she had not even -noticed his absence? But that could not be. He began to wonder whether -it was perhaps a good sign. She _had_ noticed his absence, speaking to -her father about it. Was it perhaps--? His heart began to beat again as -at first. But Rita took very little notice of him all the evening. She -was perfectly sweet and smiling, and when she did address him did it -with all her old friendliness; but Harry could not persuade himself that -she had remarked him and his careful tie, and his well-brushed curls at -all. - -After that there ensued a time of mingled torture and happiness, when -Rita played with the young man as a cat plays with a mouse. She was more -interested in him than she had ever been in any young man before. He was -a study to her of the most attractive kind. A young man who was in -love--not a young man who was wanting to marry, a species of which she -had seen several specimens--but one who was actually, really, warmly in -love--and with herself. She wanted to see how such a person behaved. It -was as good as a play to her. She would laugh to herself secretly, -thinking of it, so much amused was she; and it seemed to her almost a -duty to try him in every way, to see how far this love would carry him, -and how long he would manage to keep it under. It did not occur to Rita -that this was a somewhat cruel process, or that Harry was pledged in -honour to her father not to betray himself. The cat most likely has no -idea of cruelty in her play with the mouse. Sometimes Rita would take no -notice of him at all, neglecting all the wistful attention which poor -Harry felt it was within his bond to bestow so long as he looked for -nothing in return. For a whole evening she would not so much as look at -him; then would suddenly turn with her most cordial smile, with a few -words more sweet than he thought she had ever bestowed upon him before. -Sometimes she would call him to her side, and ply him with seductions -which poor Harry did not know how to resist; sometimes she would devote -all her efforts to the task of making him betray himself, tempting him -with all sorts of opportunities. But Harry stood fast. He had given his -promise, and nothing would make him break it. He wavered like a tree in -the wind, but he never yielded. Sometimes she made him think that she -was ready to listen to anything he might say, and another time would -take the first opportunity of showing him that he was nothing to her. It -was hard upon the mouse; yet we doubt whether he would have exchanged -this agitated existence for the most happy calm. He went to the -Consulate with a continued expectation, with his heart always beating -loudly, not knowing what he was to look for; but a more calm level of -kindness would not have given him those variations of feeling, that -dramatic interest in his life; so that, perhaps, there was not much harm -done, the tortured liking the play as much as the torturer. As for Rita -she was very much interested too; the pursuit amused her--it was a new -sensation. She wanted above all things to overcome his resolution, and -make him betray himself. But here her efforts were vain against the rock -of Harry’s invincibility. He would not, whatever she might do, break his -promise. He kept a watch upon himself which was not to be overcome. - -The Vice-Consul did not know what to make of the business altogether. It -gave him a great deal of thought. He watched the young man with a -jealous eye: but Harry met every scrutiny with an unflinching front. And -Mr. Bonamy did what he could to watch his daughter, but that was not so -easy. She was amusing herself, but whether she was going too far in her -trial of Harry’s constancy he could not tell. She bewildered her father, -which was not difficult; but what was more wonderful, after a while, -this venturous person began to bewilder herself. She thought she was -tired of Harry, who could not be got to swerve out of the right way. She -began to think that it was all a fiction, or that this love after the -English fashion was far too self-commanded and restrained for a half -Italian girl. She had thought at first that it would be quite easy and -extremely amusing to make him betray himself. And she had resolved in -such a case that his downfall should do him no harm; she would not -betray him; she would keep his secret. But she had not supposed that he -would stand out, that he would be able to resist her: and at length she -got confused about her own notions, and about his conduct and everything -around her, and knew no longer what to think. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -A CRISIS. - - -It was like a play the intercourse which went on between these two; the -perpetual aggressions of the girl and defences of the young man, the -troubled spectatorship of the father, who saw that slave of his word -resisting, fighting always, more or less feebly, but yet resisting all -the _agaceries_, all the temptations, which a spirit of mischief could -throw in his way. Sometimes the sight was laughable, sometimes it was -almost tragic, to the looker on; and he was much disturbed at the same -time on his own account, not knowing what Rita meant by it all. “Take -care what you are doing,” he would say to her, with mingled pity and -alarm--pity for the young man, alarm for himself and her. “What am I -doing, papa?” Rita would ask, with the greatest innocence. “That is -exactly what I can’t tell,” poor Mr. Bonamy said. But his warnings never -came to more than this. And nothing in all her life had so amused Rita -as her torture of this unfortunate young man. One day they happened to -be alone for a little while, Mr. Bonamy having been called away. It was -on a Sunday evening, after dinner, a day when the Bonamys, following the -old-fashioned English rule, were always alone. Harry had avoided -opportunities of being alone with Rita as much as lovers generally -scheme for that privilege, but to-day there was no help for it. She was -seated at the open window in her usual dress of vapoury white; the -summer was advancing, and it would soon be time for the removal of the -household to the country, where they went every year. Mr. Bonamy had -been called away, quite unexpectedly, to his own dreadful vexation and -the terror of Harry, but to Rita’s secret delight. The night-air puffed -the white curtains over her head and about her white, half-visible -figure. The window looked out upon the garden, and there was a little -moisture of the sea in the air. Harry was standing at the other side of -the window, half concealed by the floating veil of the curtain. Rita -was half buried in a great chair. A shaded lamp stood on a table in the -other part of the room, but that was all, not light enough to see each -other by. There had been a somewhat long silence, and Harry was trying -hard to break loose from this enchantment and go away. But his heart was -faint with the sweetness of it, poor fellow! and he could not get free, -especially now that they were alone. If it could have been helped, he -would not have stayed; but he had not been able to help it, and it was -sweet. He was snatching a fearful joy, not saying anything, scarcely -daring to breathe. Then into the soft silence came her voice. - -“Mr. Oliver, they tell me summer nights in England are so much sweeter -than here. What are those long twilights? I have read about them, but I -don’t understand it. Tell me.” He could make out that she leaned forward -in her chair, putting her hands together, which was a way she had. - -“I don’t think,” said Harry, catching his breath, “that anything can be -sweeter than the evenings here.” - -“Ah, but there is a difference; tell me. You know that I am never to go -to England,” said Rita, plaintively; “though I remember you said you -would not be afraid to take me. What made you say that, Mr. Oliver? -perhaps you forget that you ever did.” - -“Oh, no; I don’t forget.” - -“You never would enter into any particulars; but I am glad at least that -you don’t forget. Now papa is away, we may talk of it. It always hurts -papa when I speak of England. So tell me--tell me quick--how was it that -you thought you could make it safe? Ah, how I wish you could!” she said, -clasping her hands. - -Harry said never a word. His heart was thumping so against his breast -that he thought every moment it would burst forth from that uneasy -house. Now it got into his throat, and seemed to choke him; he could not -speak. - -“You don’t say anything,” said Rita, with again a little tone of -complaint. “Do you think that is kind, or fair? You rouse my -expectations, and then you never say another word. I have thought of it -all this time, and always wondered if you would ever tell me. How could -Mr. Oliver manage to take me to England without danger? that is what I -have always been saying to myself. What, Mr. Oliver! won’t you say a -word?” - -Here there burst a cry from Harry’s breast. “Don’t torture me,” he said; -then collecting all his strength, “It was my presumption. I thought only -that to take--the most precious care of you----” - -His voice shook, and at last his little torturer felt that she had got -almost to the end of his powers. - -“That is a very pretty way of saying it, Mr. Oliver; precious care; it -is not slang, is it? I am sure you would be kind--very, very kind.” - -“Oh, _kind_!” cried poor Harry, grasping unconsciously the white -curtains that kept blowing between him and her, in his strong, hot -hands. - -“Don’t you like the word? I think it is such a nice word. There is -nothing like it in Italian, and you can apply it so widely. You can be -kind to a horse or a dog; and then to children, and sick people and poor -people; and then--to everybody--me. You have always been, ever since I -knew you, very kind to me.” - -“Don’t say so--don’t say so--not that word,” Harry cried. - -“But there is no other word half so good. Other words express other -feelings; kind means, just kind. There is nothing else expresses it. -English is a wonderfully fine language. It is so strong and so -trustworthy. You feel as if you could believe it, every word. Mr. -Oliver,” said Rita, in her little, soft, insinuating voice, “did you -really, really believe that--that I might go to England, if--someone -were to take care of me, such care as you call precious; but, then, who -would do that? not papa, for he is so frightened. No one I know.” - -“Miss Bonamy, I must say good night,” said Harry, very shortly, taking -himself out of the floating curtain, almost tearing it down in his -agitation. - -“Good night! before papa comes back? Oh, but that would be _un_kind. -Don’t. Why should you run off in such a hurry in the very middle of our -talk?” - -“Because,” he said, with the crushed curtain like a wisp in his hands, -“I can’t stay--I mustn’t stay. Forgive me, and, if you will, excuse me: -and--good night!” - -He was rushing away, when she put out her hand. He saw that, though -there was so little light. He could not refuse to shake hands with her; -and instead of leaving the pressure to him, she took hold of his hand -for a second, lightly but firmly detaining him. “Mr. Oliver,” she said, -with that little plaintive tone, “you should not run away.” - -Harry was hoarse with agitation and distress. That soft, light touch of -detention made him wild. “I must fly,” he said, “fly! Do you think I -want to go? I must fly, and come no more.” - -And he turned and disappeared like an arrow, as swift, but not so -noiselessly, stumbling through the dark room. She lay back in her chair -and listened to him all the way rushing down the stairs, shutting the -great door with a clang. Then his steps were audible along the street -hurrying away. The very foot, Rita thought, spoke English among the -other footsteps. She seemed to hear them ever so far off, hurrying, -flying. She was a spoiled child. She had not succeeded in her wicked -attempt, and some other feeling mingled with the childish disappointment -which provoked and mortified her. When the Vice-Consul came back, not -without a great deal of anxiety in his mind, he found her still sitting -there, crying as if her perverse heart would break. It gave him a -mingled sense of fright and relief to see that there was no one else in -the room; but when he found that Rita was crying, his foolish, fatherly -heart was melted altogether. He hurried across the half-lighted room. -“What is the matter, my darling, what is the matter? Where is Oliver? Is -it his fault?” he said. - -“Papa,” cried Rita, with sobs, “do not speak to me of Mr. Oliver; he is -a clod, he is a stone. It is not a bit true what you told me of him. He -must have been laughing at you--or perhaps at me. It is not a bit true.” - -“What is it that is not true? My pet, this young fellow has been saying -something to vex you? Bless my heart! he shall go to-morrow if he has -broken his word and said anything to annoy you.” - -And the Vice-Consul, very wroth, drew a chair to the side of Rita’s, and -put his arm round her, soothing her with soft words and caresses, and -launching thunderbolts of anger at the supposed culprit. Rita cried -softly for some time on her father’s shoulder. Then she interrupted him, -putting her hand upon his mouth. - -“Papa, don’t; you don’t know. What provokes me is different. It is not -because he said anything. Listen,” said Rita, putting her lips to his -ear; “I _know_ it is not true what he said to you. It can’t be true, -because I have tried him and tried him, and he _won’t_ say anything. He -has no feeling at all in him, and it cannot be true.” - -“Rita! Rita! what are you saying?” Mr. Bonamy cried. - -The horror in his voice brought her to herself. She sat up suddenly, -drying her eyes. “Well, papa, it is your fault. You gave me a puzzle to -make out. I thought it would be fun; but it is not fun. As for Mr. -Oliver, he is just an excellent, trustworthy Englishman. You need not -fear that he will ever be carried away. As for feeling, I don’t think he -knows what it is. He is English--English all over.” She clapped her -hands together to give emphasis to her sentence, like a true Italian, -which by turns she was. - -“Yes, he is English--very English. I thought you liked everything that -was English,” the surprised father said. - -“And so I do; but what does it matter if you will never, never let me go -to England? Take me to England, papa!” - -“My darling! when you know what my feeling is on that subject--anything -but that, Rita; ask me anything but that.” - -“Well,” she replied, “Mr. Oliver said there would be no difficulty about -it; he said he would take the most precious care of me. Is that slang, -papa?” - -“Slang? bless my heart, it sounds like something quite different to me,” -cried the Vice-Consul, frowning. But Rita once more put her hand upon -his mouth. - -“You know better than I do,” she said, demurely. “I could not be sure -which it was; but you may make yourself quite comfortable, papa, for Mr. -Oliver is very conscientious, and never said a word. I begin,” she said -pensively, “to understand English now.” - -“Rita, I think you must be taking leave of your senses. You begin to -understand English! your own language!” - -She nodded her head a great many times in reply. - -“Yes, I begin to understand it,” she said. And this was all he could get -out of her. She began presently to talk upon other subjects, and kept -him amused all the rest of the evening, and Harry was not mentioned -again between them. - -But Harry himself, poor fellow, went home like the wind, or rather like -a straw blown before the wind; hastening, without any apparent movement -of his own, to the bare rooms which were his only refuge. He arrived -there panting like a man pursued, and shut his door as if it were a -fence between him and his pursuers. He could not have explained to -himself why he did this, for Rita, though she had certainly assailed -him, had not come after him through the streets, as by his appearance -one might have thought she had done, forcing him to his best speed. But -when he sat down and thought it all over, though Harry was excited to -the highest degree, it could scarcely be said of him that he was -unhappy. He was breathless with the excitement of his escape. He said to -himself that he must not go again; that he would not run such risks -again, that another time he must betray himself; but all the time, -underneath everything, he had the consciousness that his very flight had -told his story as effectually as words could have done it, and that she -could not now be at any loss to know what was the moving spring of all -his recent life. He felt that she had suspected him all these days. He -knew that she had meant to surprise his secret somehow, whether in -simple love of mischief and curiosity, or whether with some other -motive, who could tell? but certainly this was what she had been doing: -and there dawned upon him a light of something which was not exactly -hope, but which yet warmed and brightened his horizon, and made the -whole world somehow a better, a less heavy and tedious place. He did not -say even to himself that anything definite was in his hope; what he said -was that he could not go back, that he would run no more risks, that, -whatever might be said to him on the subject, his policy was to keep -away. But this had no such tragic meaning to him as it had on the -previous occasion, when his life had been cut off in half, and his -heart, he thought, rent in twain. If he was ever made to go back -again--a thought which made Harry’s heart jump, but which he did not -feel, as before, was impossible--then it would not be to hold his -tongue. And whatever happened there was one thing which he could not be -doubtful about. He had saved his honour, hard as had been the trial, and -yet she _knew_. She could not, he was sure, either mistake him or ignore -him any longer. Reject him, yes; allow him to languish far from her, -which would be the kindest thing, unless---- but certainly now she knew. - -And then a week or more elapsed. After the first twenty-four hours Harry -began to have heats and chills, wondering if he would be forbidden to go -again. He did not intend to go, but yet to be sent away is different; -and he awaited a summons to the Vice-Consul with feelings of alarm. But -though he was constantly summoned to the Vice-Consul’s presence, he -heard nothing upon this all-interesting subject. Mr. Bonamy looked -coldly upon him for the first day, but said nothing save about business. -And afterwards Harry went on just as before. Rita’s “night” came round, -but Harry did not go. He dressed himself as if he were going, and got -rid of Paolo, who had been greatly disappointed by the total absence of -confidence in him which his friend showed. Naturally, after his -exertions on Harry’s behalf, the offer of the ring and the studs, the -purchase of the flower and the eau-de-cologne, Paolo had felt that he -had a right to hear all that had taken place, and how the lady had been -won, which he did not think would be a difficult matter. The idea that -his friend could be called back without the lady being won, did not -occur to his swift Italian mind. And after that critical moment when he -linked his arm in Harry’s, and led him eagerly off to the quietest -promenade he could think of, to hear all about it, Paolo had treated -Harry’s indignant denial that there was anything to tell with the -contempt it deserved. “Nothing?” he had said, with an astonishment -almost beyond speech. “Nothing? But that means that you do not wish to -tell me--that you will not give your confidence to me.” When Harry -disclaimed this, Paolo had only shook his head. “I see that you have not -trust in me,” he said, and he had retired in his turn for a few days -from his friend’s society, and a little coolness and momentary -estrangement had ensued. - -But some time had elapsed since then, and one of those reconciliations -of which Harry was afraid had followed, and Paolo’s interest was warmer -than ever. He watched his friend’s looks and noted every visit he paid, -so that it required nothing less than the effort of dressing and setting -out for the Vice-Consul’s to shake himself free from Paolo’s society and -remarks. Harry went to the very street, to the opposite side, to watch -the windows, and to get a glimpse if he could of the little white -figure, which was the central point in the world to him. But long before -the usual hour the party broke up, and Harry was surprised by a sudden -outpouring of groups of people in evening dresses--ladies with scarfs -thrown over their heads, and satin slippers, not adapted for the rough -pavement. Some of these groups, departing guests, perceived him, before -he was aware. “Oh! are you going to the Bonamys?” said a lady; “don’t -go; the Vice-Consul has been taken ill; he has had a fit or something. -You may see how early we are coming away.” The whole street was soon -full of a babble of voices, all talking of this. The Vice-Consul had -been suddenly taken ill; he had fainted in the midst of the assembly, -and the doctor had been sent for in haste. When Harry looked up at the -windows they were all deserted--the lights still burning, the white -curtains faintly swaying about, but the rooms entirely empty. In a -moment all had become miserable and neglected. Life had ebbed out of the -room, and left everything cold and silent. He felt with a chill at his -heart as if death had come in instead to fill up the vacant place; he -went to the door to inquire about his kind patron, his trustful master, -his fatherly friend, with a heart out of which all the previous thoughts -had departed for the moment. He thought of Rita, indeed, with instant -anxiety; but yet her father was foremost in his mind. “Very bad, sir,” -the servant said, who was an Englishman, “very bad,” holding the door -wide open as he said so; and Harry went in in his evening clothes, -looking as if he had meant to go to the party. He was a little scared -afterwards to think that Rita never could know that he did not mean to -come to the party. He went upstairs into the empty drawing-room; there -were a few signs of hasty disturbance about it, evidences of the sudden -interruption; a card-table set out with all the cards as they had been -dealt round it; groups of chairs standing together, and a tray of ices -on a side-table. Such a forsaken room always raises an infinite crowd of -suggestions. It is such a lesson upon the dangers and changes of life as -no sermon can read. Harry stood in the midst of it, feeling as if he had -seen the writing on the wall which startled the ancient king in the -midst of his revel. It had been an innocent revel--nothing in it to -offend earth or heaven; but the touch of a sudden calamity makes even -the most innocent pleasure-making seem vain. He stood there feeling as -if on the edge of a tomb, hearing in the distance muffled yet hasty -steps running to and fro, and all the excitement of a sudden illness. -And he had plenty of time to indulge these thoughts, for nobody came -near the room for, he thought, hours; though, of course, this was a -mistaken estimate of the time that really passed. At last Harry heard -measured steps and voices coming downstairs, and hurrying to the door -found the English doctor in company with one of the ladies of the -English community who had known Rita all her life. They told him that -the Vice-Consul’s attack was a very serious one, that he was still -unconscious, and that no one as yet could say how it would turn. “I have -told him for some time he ought to go away. He was struggling foolishly, -when he ought to have given in as so many people do.” “And poor little -Rita, what is to become of her?” the lady said. - -Harry stood with his heart in his mouth, ready for any service. Alas! -what can a young man do in such a case? An old woman is of more use. He -was sent off, however, to fetch a nurse, and to get various articles -that were necessary, and this gave him occupation. He was about the -house all the night, hearing with faint pleasure that Rita would not -leave her father’s bedside, and glad to share her vigil. He would have -liked to be there too to help, not caring what he did. The Vice-Consul -was very ill for many days, during which time Harry threw himself into -the business of the office, and worked like a slave. He thought neither -of reward nor of the manner in which his behaviour was being -contemplated by the little community around, all as much interested as -the population of a village, though they formed an important part of a -large and busy town. He thought nothing of all this; his new life -absorbed him so that he had no faculty or thought that was free for -anything else. He did not seem to require either rest or regular meals, -but took up Mr. Bonamy’s work during the day, and ran about on any -errand of the sick-room all the night. - -And at last the patient began to get better. The seizure had been a very -bad one, but he mended, and was at last able to be removed. He was too -confused even then to know what was being done for him, or to realise -the state into which his work must have got but for the strenuous and -anxious deputyship of his clerk. He was taken away even without -knowing, without being able to say a word to Harry. But Rita, who had so -tortured him, who even in the midst of her watch had heard without -knowing it how Harry had taken her father’s place, and how he had made -himself the servant of the house, did not leave him without a token of -her gratitude. One day, while he was sitting absorbed in business, but -not able to keep himself from thinking now and then wistfully whether he -should see either of them before they went away, there came a soft -little knock at the door of communication by which the Vice-Consul had -introduced him first into his house. Harry was at Mr. Bonamy’s own -table, taking his place, and feeling himself already so much at home in -the work that the appeals which he had dreaded at first no longer -affected him. But when he heard this knock his whole frame quivered. He -did not know what to expect. He got up trembling from his chair, and -opened the door. In the passage stood Rita, very worn and pale, with -dark lines round the eyes that seemed to fill up all her face. She had -scarcely left her father’s bedside, he had heard, watching over him -night and day. Her slight little figure, always so slim and girlish, -seemed to have shrunk to nothing. There was not a trace of colour in her -face. “Miss Bonamy!” he said, with a sharp tone of surprise, though he -was not surprised; the moment he had heard the knock he had been aware -that Rita, and no other, must have made that appeal. The touch on the -door had conveyed a plaintive sound to him like her voice. She smiled, -but did not say anything. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears, and the -soft lines of her mouth quivered. She came into the office, where he -stood gazing at her, and held out to him both her hands, smiling up in -his face like a child. “I have come to thank you,” she said, at last, -the two big tears dropping like drops of rain in a thunder shower, “for -all your--kindness.” She paused a little before that last word, and -through the tears, through the angelical, pathetic smile, which wrung -poor Harry’s heart, there came something that was like a ghost of -mischief. She remembered their last conversation, though so much had -happened since, and could not refrain, though her heart was moved to its -depths, from throwing this ghost of a malicious shaft at him. Somehow -the effect upon Harry was of a different kind from before. Perhaps he -felt that he had now a standing-ground which no one could undervalue or -take from him. At all events he kept her hands in his, and looked at her -with a gaze under which her eyes swerved. “It was not kindness,” he -said. - -Rita drew back a step, though her hands were held fast. Her eyes -drooped, she could not meet his, though Harry’s eyes were insignificant -English eyes in comparison with those great dreamy lights that shone out -of her little pale face. Then she gave one sudden glance at him, -wavering and trembling. “I know it was not,” said Rita, with a great -effort to steady her voice. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -THE VICE-CONSUL’S RESOLUTION. - - -The Bonamys had a little country-house near the sea, one of those grey -houses, with its vineyard and its fields, which are so common in Italy, -so homely, having so little of the picturesque grace which is suggested -by everything Italian to our minds. The rooms were large and sparely -furnished, one of them, the only pleasant one, opening upon a terrace -which overlooked the sea. Here the Vice-Consul was brought, and laid -upon a couch in the long warm days, after the sun had gone off the -house, to breathe in the pleasant saltness, and refresh himself with -that profound Mediterranean blue which is like nothing else. At first he -was able for no mental, and not much physical, effort, but by degrees -life came back to him; and with the earliest gleams of revival came the -recollection of all that had dropped out of his hands, his work, the -office, all that had depended upon him. When this first crisis came, -which had been much dreaded by the doctors, Rita had to meet it alone. -It came in a moment, after a day of listless enjoyment. There had been -some cool breezes, and a little breath of more vigorous life had got -into his relaxed and feeble frame. He had fallen asleep in the -afternoon, his daughter sitting by him. All was tranquil round about, as -became the surroundings of a convalescent, the air breathing softly, the -violent sun, which is in Italy an enemy of the feeble, happily gone out -of sight, the sea sounding softly upon the rocks, the cicala shrill in -the trees. It was the only sharp note in all that quiet, but Rita, for -one, no more knew of the existence of a country landscape without the -shrill tones of the cicala, than an English girl could realise one -without the birds. There were no great trees about, nothing but those -which were useful according to the frugal custom of wealthy Tuscany, -where everything is expected to bear fruit. The lattice-work overhead -was partly covered with a vine, which made a green roof over one part -of it; but the sick man wanted all the air he could get, so he was not -below the pergola, but in the open part, the soft breeze blowing freely -about him. He lay with his fine head turned towards the sea, a beard, -the growth of his illness, softening the gauntness of the lower part of -his face, sleeping with that utter _abandon_ of weakness which seems to -restore something of the charm of childhood to the sick. Rita sat by, -with a book in her hands which she was not reading. It would be hard to -tell what she was doing; not thinking either;--scenes in the past, -scenes in the future, were gliding through her dreamy mind. Which was -most real she could not tell. She was standing on the edge of fate, not -knowing what a day or a moment might bring forth. All the world had -paused with her in that suspense which was sweet. She did not want to be -done with it or to shorten it, or to make anything advance a step -faster; indeed she did not know what it was that was going to come. But -_it_ would not end there, she said sometimes to herself; it was -impossible that it could end there; one thing or another must come of -it. But what it was she wanted to come of it, Rita, even to herself, -would not venture to say. - -When all at once, everything being so quiet, the Vice-Consul suddenly -woke up. He opened his eyes with more energy than usual, and made a -little movement to rise, with an impulse of active life, such as he had -not shown before. - -“Ah, you are there, my pet,” he said. “I was dreaming that we were at -home; that there had been despatches. I fear I have been sadly idle. How -long have I been ill? It is too early for us to be here.” - -“No, papa,” said Rita, alarmed. “Oh, not at all too early--at this time -we are always here.” - -He raised himself on his arm, and a startled look came upon his face. - -“How long have I been ill?” he said. - -“Never mind, papa--a--good while. You are not to think of that; but to -get better, and not to trouble yourself.” - -“That is nonsense, my dear; there is the office that must be thought of; -if you knew the arrears that accumulate even in a few days. I seem to -have lost count of time; oddly enough. I can’t remember anything. How -many--days is it?” - -His eyes opened wide, his under lip quivered a little, and a flush of -weakness and excitement came upon his cheek. Rita threw down her book -and came hastily to his side, kneeling down by the sofa. - -“Papa! you must not be anxious; you must not ask any questions yet. This -I can tell you, there are no arrears. Mr. Oliver has got the charge of -everything, and he is doing it all so well, so well, Mr. Henderson told -me. He said, ‘If it was not so heart-breaking to miss his dear face,’ -and here Rita gave her father a sudden kiss to conceal, and at the same -time to express, her own agitation, ‘one could scarcely see the -difference. Mr. Oliver has behaved like--nobody ever behaved so well.’” - -“Bless my soul!” said Mr. Bonamy, putting up his hand to stroke his -daughter’s face, “here is enthusiasm! I did not know you thought so much -of Oliver.” Then it suddenly occurred to him to look at that hand. He -held it up and contemplated it, at first with amusement, afterwards with -a little alarm. “Here is a poor old claw,” he said, “that looks like---- -why, Rita, it looks like a very bad bout; it looks like a--long illness. -Good heavens! am I deceiving myself. How long have I been ill?” this he -said in a very peremptory tone. - -“Papa,” Rita said, putting her arms around him, “Mr. Oliver has managed -everything, there is nothing to trouble yourself about. Mr. Henderson -said so, and so did the man from Florence--that man, I forget his name.” - -A look of anguish came upon Mr. Bonamy’s face. To come under the -reproof, or subject himself to the interference of the Consul-General at -Florence, had always been the terror of his official life. He had kept -the danger at bay hitherto, acting with great independence, and being -permitted to do so in an astonishing way; but he had known, or thought -he knew, that they were ready to pounce upon him at the first -opportunity. The idea of a man from Florence was bitter to him beyond -conception. A dark colour came over his face, a sort of purple hue, -which made Rita wild with terror. - -“What--what--what?” he cried, stammering. Rita thought he was going to -have another fit; she called out for Benedetta, Benedetta! and with -anxious hands, caressing, yet half forcing him back upon his pillows, -began to fan him with a great fan which lay on his sofa. He allowed her -to lay him down, and perhaps the sight of her anxiety moved him to exert -all his powers of self-control. He subdued the rising confusion of -passionate mortification within him; in which effort he was helped by -his weakness, which made any great convulsion of feeling impossible. -By-and-bye he looked up at her with a half-smile. Benedetta had come at -her call, and was bringing water and vinegar, and bandages of linen to -put on his head. He waved all these appliances away with his hand. - -“Don’t be afraid, I am not going to be--worse,” he said feebly. “I may -be bad enough, but not worse. When did the man from Florence come? Tell -me everything now.” - -Then Rita, hesitating and faltering, told him the story of his illness, -and all the long history burst confusedly upon his brain. He had thought -he had been a few days, perhaps a week ill, and he had been six weeks. -He had been preparing himself for a great deal to do when he should get -well, and he found himself replaced, put aside. There were points in the -story which consoled him. It was no man from Florence who had been doing -his work--that was a wonderful comfort--but his own friend, the young -fellow whom he had taken up and been kind to, who was the creature of -his bounty. The Consul-General had not found a word to say; he had -approved, and sanctioned, and authorised everything, and the character -of Mr. Bonamy’s work had been kept up. He lay still and kept himself -quiet, and listened to every word. Benedetta, who did not understand the -English, stood by with all her appliances, her cold compresses, her -bandages, the soft white folds of linen in which his hot forehead was to -be bound. But the patient eluded her. He kept himself quiet in spite of -all temptations. - -“You can send her away, Rita,” he said. “What are you frightened for? I -must have known sooner or later. It is far better that I should know. I -have been surrounded by friends, everybody has been good to me; and if -you have no objection, my darling, I should like to see Oliver here.” - -“I don’t know,” said Rita, “why you should think I could have any -objection to--anything you wished, papa.” - -There was almost a glow of amusement in the Consul’s eyes. “My dear, you -are very dutiful,” he said. And then the time came when he had to be -carried back again in his couch indoors before the hour of sunset, which -is feared throughout Italy, and to have his invalid meal brought to him. -The evening was marked by a great event, for that night the Vice-Consul -walked to bed, which was a thing which never had happened before. And -from this time Mr. Bonamy began to accustom himself to all that had -happened, and when the doctor came he extracted from him the full -history of his illness, which interested him very greatly, and gave him -something to think about. It was not unnatural that he should be -startled. “It is a thing that is sure to recur again?” he asked. - -“Well, we do not say that anything is sure to recur again. We say that, -given the same disposition, the same symptoms might reappear.” - -“And the third time kills?” the Vice-Consul said. - -“My dear Bonamy, that again is not a thing we say. Every repetition of -course weakens the patient,” said the judicious doctor. - -The sick man laughed, but when he was alone his countenance was very -grave. He lay and reflected upon everything, and thought how lonely his -child would be when he was taken from her. She had some relations, but -his anxiety to keep her from going to England had made him negligent of -his own family at home; and he had something to leave her; he had not -left his child altogether without provision. But what a change it would -be to Rita, from the house where she was queen, where everybody -worshipped and served her, where everything she said was reckoned wiser, -and everything she did more wonderful, than any other sayings or doings, -to be a semi-dependant in the house of her Aunt Ersilia, or some other -of the Italian kindred, with their different ways! This thought filled -Mr. Bonamy’s mind as he lay in the long unoccupied hours of his -convalescence with his face turned to the blue Italian sea. Two days -after he made a request to his child. “Will you write a note to Oliver,” -he said, “and ask him to come and see me? But not if you have any -objection.” He watched her intently, and he saw a quick, faint colour -flash over her face. - -“Why should I have any objection? I told you I had not any, papa; and if -I had what would it matter?” she said. - -“It would matter a great deal to me. But you do not dislike poor Oliver, -Rita?” - -“Dislike him! Do you think I am made of stone? He has done everything, -_everything_, while you have been ill. I should be a demon if I did -not--if I disliked him as you say.” - -“But there is a great difference,” said the Vice-Consul, “between -dislike and--I don’t know, my pet, what word to use.” - -“Yes, there is a great difference,” she said, demurely; and having her -paper neatly arranged before her, she proceeded to write the note which -follows:-- - - “Dear Mr. Oliver, - - “Papa is a great deal better. He thinks he would like to see you on - Sunday if you would be so good as to come out here. He has been - very much touched to hear of all you have been doing for him. And - so am I. He wants to know all about it, and to thank you. But do - not think you will be troubled with any thanks from me, for I know - that you do not mean to be kind to us, though on the outside it - looks like it. - - “Truly yours, - “MARGHERITA BONAMY.” - -Here was once more her malice, which she could not put out of the -question between them. She was glad that her father did not ask to see -her note, and she put it up and sent it away with a little quickening of -all her pulses. Sunday was the next day, but she felt sure enough that -Harry would let no engagement prevent him accepting this invitation. -They sat in silence for some time after that letter was despatched. Rita -felt her whole life quickened, her horizon wider, the day of more -importance, the passing moments more weighty. She sat quite silent, her -mind being full of so many thoughts. At last the Vice-Consul spoke, as -if no pause had occurred. “Notwithstanding,” he said, “you know Oliver -is not clever, Rita; that must be taken into account.” - -On this Rita, not perceiving that she betrayed the strain of her own -thoughts by receiving the remark without surprise, answered, with a -little sigh of regret, “No, he is not clever; but perhaps there are some -things that are better than being clever,” she added, in a doubtful -tone. - -Mr. Bonamy laughed a little, faintly. “Are you coming to see that?” he -said. - -“I don’t know if I am coming to see it, papa. I think I always saw it. -One does not think much whether the people one cares for are clever or -not.” Then perceiving the inference which might be drawn from her words, -Rita blushed wildly, and turned suddenly upon her father defiant eyes. -But he did not make any remark, half because he was weak, half because -of a mingled pang of satisfaction and pain to think that “the people she -cared for” now included other relations than those of the earliest stage -in life. A father, perhaps, feels it more than a mother when his -daughter’s heart goes away from him to another man: there is a keener -jealousy in it, a sharper sense of contrast. He had concentrated all his -happiness in his child; and, lo! in a moment there appeared a stranger -in her life who would be more to her than he was. The first shock of -this discovery is always painful; and as he lay there bearing this and -thinking over all that was before him, an infinite sadness came into the -Vice-Consul’s smile. It was not only natural that this blossom of his -life should detach itself from him, but it was well. To preside at and -assist in the replacement of one’s self by another, preparing as it were -the preliminary ceremonials of one’s own funeral, is a curious -experience; but Mr. Bonamy felt, with a little melancholy that this was -the thing which it now remained for him to do. He could not help making -comparisons between himself and Harry. Harry was not clever; he was a -good fellow who sat and gaped when the conversation took anything beyond -a practical turn. Yes: he was a very good fellow; he had been a saviour -in trouble; but yet--Mr. Bonamy smiled sadly at the idea of stepping -down from his throne, and bidding Harry mount in his place; he could not -promote him to his vice-consulship, but he could promote him to the -throne of Rita, which was more. And it would be well--the best thing -that could happen. Having once had an “attack,” which was how he put it -euphemistically--a man was sure to have more; and the third kills. -Therefore, how needful it was, how essential to have some one to care -for Rita, somebody in whose hands he could leave her--when he died! -“When I die”--these are words which it is hard to say without some faint -shiver. When one is far off from all appearance of that conclusion, they -may be easy; but when the preliminaries of the end have already taken -place, and the clouds are gathering towards the great final tableau and -termination, then the very cadence of them has something in it that -gives a tingle to all the nerves. “When I die.” Mr. Bonamy was not much -over fifty; he had not thought of anything of the kind. But here it was -looking him in the face whether he would or not. - -Harry came at the summons without a moment’s delay. He brought a full -report of all the business to lay before his chief. The Vice-Consul, -notwithstanding his dreary thoughts, was making unmistakable progress. -He was better every day. He was able to take an interest in all that his -deputy had to tell him, and to feel the gratification which all the -office had shared in baffling the man from Florence, and showing him a -state of affairs with which no fault could be found. - -“I told him, Sir, that your business was always in too perfect order to -break down with such a little trial. I showed him how we had only to -follow your rule, and all was clear.” Mr. Bonamy laid his thin hand upon -the young fellow’s shoulder, and patted it softly. - -“I wonder,” he said, “if you would say as much for me if I had no -daughter?” - -“Yes,” said Harry, with the utmost energy; “don’t think, Sir, that I had -any interested motive.” This pleased the Vice-Consul; and it pleased -him too that Harry resented with scorn, and almost indignation, the idea -that he might not return to his work, or that this illness of his was a -break up, as in his heart Mr. Bonamy believed it to be. Harry knew -nothing whatever about medicine, but his light-hearted certainty that -his patron would be in the office again in October as well as ever, gave -a cheer to the sick man’s failing heart, as shouts of encouragement from -the shore, and the sight of all the eager assistants ready to help and -watching every struggle, cheer a vessel which is trying to reach a -dangerous harbour. There began to steal into his heart a feeling that, -perhaps--after all. Notwithstanding he held by his first resolution. He -had a long conversation with Harry, which had nothing to do with -business. The young man never forgot that half hour’s talk, with the sea -air blowing softly over all the sweetness of the garden, the cicala in -the trees, the sound of the Mediterranean beyond. Harry thought that -once or twice he saw in the dim room beyond a little white figure appear -in the distance, opening a door, looking wistfully to see if the -conference was nearly at an end, then disappearing again. And though the -Vice-Consul was opening the gates of heaven to him, at that moment even -Mr. Bonamy seemed tedious. The last time the apparition showed the -Vice-Consul had gripped Harry’s hand with those long worn fingers, which -he called claws, not without a certain justice. “And you must give me -your word never to take her to England,” he was saying, in a low and -earnest voice. But before Harry could reply, Rita, impatient, had come -across the dim room indoors, and was standing in the window with a -pucker in her forehead, and a tone of querulous impatience. - -“You ought to have had your beef-tea, and your champagne, and your -tonic, and all your nourishments,” said Rita. “I have looked in a dozen -times, but you were always so busy! What can you have to say to Mr. -Oliver all this time? He ought not to keep you so long--when you know an -invalid wants feeding constantly,” she said, turning with petulance to -Harry. “How could you be so thoughtless, Mr. Oliver? that was not kind -at all.” - -Harry did not reply anything to this tirade. He looked at her as if the -mere sight of her was enough for him; as if nothing that could be said -made any difference. As for Rita, she was not tranquil, but excited, and -half angry. It was impossible to suppose that they had not been talking -about her, and like many other people she objected mightily to being -talked over. She came out and in with a nervous, irritable haste, -bringing trays with food and medicine which she would permit no one to -touch. Harry, when he offered his help, was driven from her with -contumely, and even Benedetta, making her appearance behind, had the cup -of jelly she carried snatched from her hands and was sent summarily -away. - -“I will have no one serve papa but myself,” Rita said. Perhaps there was -a little compunction in it. When the heat of devotion has cooled do not -we sometimes add all manner of observances to make up outside for what -is wanting within? She was nervously conscious of Harry’s presence, and -aware of the approaching moment when he would insist upon speaking for -himself. And now compunction had seized her capricious soul. She was -angry with her lover because he had stolen her heart from its first -owner. And she would fain have persuaded that first owner even in the -act of betraying him that she was his entirely, and that everything -which withdrew her from him was a pain and irritation to her. Harry, -being simple, was deceived and greatly discouraged; but the Consul, -having more insight, was never deceived. - -And in the evening the inevitable explanation came. It could not be -delayed any longer. The _Curiosa Impertinente_ reaped the consequences -of all her tricks, and all the trials to which she had subjected Harry. -She fell into the pit which she had herself digged. She might even have -been said to be at his mercy, but for his simple devotion, which thought -of no vengeance, and her own spirit and pride, which would have carried -her through any reprisals, and still might have turned the tables upon -him: but in the evening, when the Consul had gone to bed, they wandered -about the terrace under the soft Italian stars, and understood each -other. - -“There is only one thing,” Rita said. “Nothing in the world shall induce -me to call you Isaac. Choose another name, choose any name you please; -but Isaac you are not going to be. What could tempt anybody to call a -child Isaac? it is dreadful. Godfathers and godmothers ought to be -within the reach of the law.” - -Then there suddenly seemed to encircle Harry for a moment the atmosphere -of a very different place. Grey hills rose around him, the stars took a -cold, yet a kinder sparkle; the blue depths of the sea faded away into a -misty valley full of vapours. - -“When I was a child,” he said, “they called me Harry.” He did not make -any further explanations, nor did he feel that any were necessary. For a -moment he seemed to see his mother, with her two thin hands clasped -together, and to hear her voice calling him: but this was but a phantom, -a pale vision, a thing that had passed away for ever. Next moment he was -back again in the warm Italian night, with the cicala chirping, and -Rita, in a little burst of enthusiasm and pleasure, calling him by that -familiar unrelinquished name. - -END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. - -London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13 Poland Street. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2 of 3, by -Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY JOSCELYN; VOL. 2 OF 3 *** - -***** This file should be named 63158-0.txt or 63158-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/5/63158/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2 of 3 - -Author: Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: September 9, 2020 [EBook #63158] -[Last updated: October 29, 2020] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY JOSCELYN; VOL. 2 OF 3 *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="c"><img src="images/cover.jpg" -height="550" -alt="" -/></p> - -<p class="c">HARRY JOSCELYN.<br /><br /> -——<br /><br /> -VOL. II.</p> - -<h1>HARRY JOSCELYN.</h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -<br /> -<span class="lspc">MRS. OLIPHANT</span><br /> -<br /> -<small>AUTHOR OF<br /></small> -<br /><span class="eng"> -“The Chronicles of Carlingford,”</span><br /> -<br /> -&c., &c.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -IN THREE VOLUMES.<br /> -<br /> -VOL. II.<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<span class="lspc">LONDON</span>:<br /> -HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,<br /> -13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.<br /> -1881.<br /><small> -<i>All rights reserved.</i></small><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -<big><span class="lspc">HARRY JOSCELYN.</span></big></p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border:2px solid gray;margin:1em auto;max-width:60%;"> -<tr><td class="c"> -<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_II"> II., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_III"> III., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"> IV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_V"> V., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"> VI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"> VII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"> VIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"> IX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_X"> X., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"> XI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"> XII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"> XIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"> XIV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"> XV.</a> -</td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /><br /> -<small>HARRY’S RESOLUTION.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is nothing that grows and strengthens with thinking of it like the -sense of personal injury. Harry Joscelyn had been very angry when he -left home; but he was not half so angry at that moment as when he looked -out of the window of the railway carriage, as the train swept through -the valley, and saw in the distance the village roofs, over which, had -there been light enough, and had his eyes served him so far, he might -have seen the White House seated, firm and defiant, upon the Fellside. -And every mile that he travelled his wrath and indignation grew. When he -reached Liverpool he had formed his purpose beyond the reach of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> -argument, or anything that reason could say; and reason said very little -in the general excitement of his being. He had been turned out of his -home, he had been refused the money by which he thought he could have -made his fortune. He felt himself cast off by everybody belonging to -him. His mother had permitted that final outrage, he thought; for surely -she could have found means of help if she had chosen to exert herself. -His Uncle Henry had bought himself off, and got rid of a troublesome -applicant by the gift of that twenty pounds. They were all against him. -He thought of it and thought of it till they seemed to be all his -enemies, and at last he came to believe that they were glad to get quit -of him, to be done with him. This was the aspect under which he -contemplated his relations with his family when he got to Liverpool; and -the effect upon him was that of a settled disgust with all the ordinary -habits of his life, and its fashion altogether. When he thought of -returning to the office, to his former routine as clerk, the idea made -him sick. It seemed to him that he could do anything, or go anywhere, -rather than this. But though the impulse of abandoning all he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> been -or done hitherto was instantaneous, he could not quite settle in a -moment, with the same rapidity, what he was to do, or be, in the future. -He crossed to the other side of the great river with his little bag of -“needments,” the linen Mrs. Eadie had bought for him and a few other -indispensable things which he had himself procured, and lived in one of -the villages there, which have now grown into towns, watching the ships -go by, and leaving his mind open to any wandering impulse that might lay -hold upon it. In these days the River Mersey was a great sight, as -probably it is still. To the idle young man, accustomed to some share in -the perpetual commotion of that coming and going, there was meaning in -every one of the multitudinous ships that lay at anchor in the great -stream, or glided out, full-sail, to the sea, or were poked and dragged -away by a restless, toiling little slave of a steam-tug, carrying off -its prey like one of the devils of the Inferno. He knew where they were -going, and what they had to bring from afar, and all about their bills -of lading and the passengers they carried. The river had not to him that -grandeur of prose which becomes poetry, and fact which turns to romance, -in less accustomed minds; but was only a huge<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> highway, a big street -full of crowds coming and going, over which he brooded, wondering where -he should plunge into the tide of movement, and how take his first step -out of the horizons which hitherto had bounded him. He did not say, as -his mother might have done, “Oh, for the wings of a dove!” but he put -that profound breath of human impatience into nineteenth century prose, -and said to himself, “If I had but a steamboat, a yacht, anything to -take me out of reach of all of them, where they will never hear of me -again!” He was not rich enough, however, to hope for a yacht, so that -all he could really do was to decide what “boat” he would go with, and -whether he should turn his steps across the Atlantic, or choose another -quarter of the world in which to become another man.</p> - -<p>He went to the office one day, as Philip Selby discovered, and asked for -the amount of salary due to him, and purchased a few more necessary -articles of clothing; and he wrote to the persons to whom he owed money, -telling them that he was about to leave Liverpool, but would send them -their money without fail within a certain period. He did not know how -this was to be done, but he was resolute to do it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> he had no more -doubt on the matter than he had that he should perfectly succeed in his -plunge into the unknown. But after he had done this he remained for some -days longer by the river-side with a self-contradictory impulse, -watching the ships go by, and putting off the execution of his project. -Where was he to go? To resolve to give up his own identity, to separate -himself for ever from his family, and all his belongings, and all his -antecedents, was easy; but to make up his mind which boat he was to go -by, and whither he was to betake himself, was much more difficult. -America was so hackneyed, he said to himself, with that fastidious -impatience and disgust which is one of the characteristics of a sick -soul: everybody goes to America; it would be the first idea that would -occur to everyone; and this made him throw away that first suggestion -angrily, as if it had been an offence; but if not to America, then -where? He tossed about various names in his mind, satisfied with none, -and when at last he made his decision, it was made in a moment, with the -same kind of sick disgust and impatience as had made him reject the -other ideas as they presented themselves. He was crossing the river to -Liverpool, leaning<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> over the side of the ferry steamboat lest anybody -should see and recognize him, and in his own mind passing in review the -advantages and disadvantages of all the ships he passed. The Mersey was -very full and very bright, the sun shining, a brisk breeze blowing, the -sky blue, the great estuary throwing up white edges of spray and leaping -here and there against the bows of an out-going boat, in a manner which -boded little comfort to unaccustomed sailors outside the shelter of its -banks. The opposite shore was still clothed with trees beginning to grow -green in the earliest tints of spring, and not unpleasantly mingled with -the beginnings of docks and traces of mercantile invasion. Nature, as -yet, had not given up her harmonizing power; the touches of colour on -the masts, a national flag flying here and there, even the sailors’ -washing fluttering among the yards, was an addition to the brilliancy of -the spring lights. The ferry-boat was full of people, though it was not -the hour for business men to be moving about. The freight was a more -varied one than that mass of black-coated figures which weighed it down -to the water’s edge in the morning. But Harry turned his back upon them -all, and looked over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> the side, watching in a dream the long trail of -water which slid under the bows and was caught and churned by the -paddle-wheel. The motion, as he watched it thus, soothed him, and took -the place of thinking in his mind, carrying him vaguely, he knew not -whither, just as he would fain have been carried beyond the ken of men. -He was waiting the guidance of chance, not caring what became of him. -Something caught his ear suddenly as the ferry-boat rustled along by the -side of a long low steamer with raking masts and short funnels, which -lay not far from the bank.</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t go in that boat for the world,” some one said. The remark -caught Harry’s ear, and roused him into mere wantonness of opposition. -“Why?” he said to himself aloud. It did not matter whether it was said -loud or low, nobody but himself could hear it as he leaned over the -rushing water. “I’ll go.” He was in such a condition of perversity that -this was all he wanted to fix his purpose.</p> - -<p>He landed on the Liverpool side, no longer languidly, but with the air -of a man who has something to do, and went straight to examine the ship -and ascertain where to apply for his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> passage. She was bound for -Leghorn. He went stepping briskly forth to the office of the agent, and -then with a mixture of economy and gentility, still conscious of the -importance of the family from which he was about to cut himself off, -took a passage in what was called the second cabin.</p> - -<p>“What name?” said the clerk. What name? he had not considered this -question. Should he give his own name, thus leaving a clue to anyone who -chose to inquire? The doubt, the question was momentary: “Isaac Oliver,” -he said, and looked the man in the face as if defying contradiction. But -the clerk had no idea of contradicting him; as well Isaac Oliver as -Harry Joscelyn to the stranger, who knew nothing about either. Five -minutes after he could not tell what had put this name into his head; -but his fate was decided, and beyond correction. He went home with a -curious feeling in his mind, not sure whether it was amusement, or -shame, or anger with himself and fate. It was all three together. He was -himself no longer, he had thrown away his birthright. What had tempted -him to take the name of Isaac Oliver he could not explain. He laughed, -but his laugh was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> not pleasant. He was annoyed and appalled and -disgusted with himself, but he could not alter that now. All the evening -he roamed about the riverbank, looking at the ships going out and in, -and the little steamers rustling and fuming across the gleaming water, -and all the many coloured symbols and ceaseless industry of the scene, -with a strange sense of having lost himself, of having so to speak died -in the middle of his life. He could not get over it. He was living in a -little inn which had been turned into a sort of suburban tea-garden, -instead of the little neat ale-house it once was. The weather was very -fine and warm, though it was so early in the season, and every steamboat -disgorged a crowd of visitors to sit under the half-open foliage of the -trees, and in the damp little arbours. Harry avoided all these visitors -in the fear of meeting some one who might know him. Harry! he was not -Harry any longer. The mere giving of the false name had changed him. He -did not know who he was. He was confused and confounded with the sudden -difference. Had some one called out Harry Joscelyn quickly, he thought -that it would no longer have occurred to him to answer. He was not Harry -Joscelyn; and who was he? The name he had chosen, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> which some -malicious spirit had put into his head, seemed to float before him -wherever he went. He shuffled in his walk unconsciously as he fled from -himself along the margin of the great flood. What had he done? He had -abandoned not only his own name and family, but his own condition, his -place in life. Wherever he went, he would be known as a peasant, a -common countryman, he thought, never thinking in his pre-occupation that -the strangers among whom he was going knew just as much about Isaac -Oliver as about Harry Joscelyn. The night grew dark, and the great river -gleamed with a thousand sparkles of light like glowworms. Little -vessels, each with a coloured lantern, went darting across and across, -lights swung steadily with a sort of dreamy regular cadence from the -stationary ships. The stars above were not more manifold than those -little lamps below. The quiet of the night had hushed the sounds of the -great city on the other side, and all the heavy hammers and the din of -machinery: but still life was busy, coming and going, darting on a -hundred messages; pilot boats steaming out to sea, little dark tugboats -bringing back cargoes of souls out of the unknown. But Harry thought of -nothing save of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> the strange, unpremeditated step he had taken; that one -incident filled all the earth to him; a momentary impulse, a deed that -was scarcely his, and yet he felt that it would colour all his life. He -stayed out till the passenger boats had stopped and all the visitors -were gone. The little inn was shut up and dark, all but one little -querulous candle sitting up for him, when he went home: home! he called -this temporary refuge by that sacred name involuntarily—just such a -home he now said bitterly, as he would have for the rest of his life. -Fortunately next day the Leghorn boat was to sail, and his new start -would be made without time to think about it any more.</p> - -<p>Isaac Oliver took possession of his berth next morning. He went on board -early, and lounged about the deck all day. For the first time this -morning it occurred to him that they might send after him, that his -departure could not have passed altogether without notice among his -friends. He had not thought of this before, but now it came upon him -with some force. They would try to stop him at the last moment. The very -name he had chosen would betray him, for who but Harry Joscelyn would -call himself Isaac Oliver? He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> kept on the further side of the ship, -leaning over the bulwarks, and watched everybody who went or came with -jealous eyes. Tardy passengers came on board one after another, bringing -luggage and new items of cargo and provisions; there was scarcely a -moment without some arrival, and every one of them, Harry felt, must be -for him. When at last the gangway was detached, the anchor weighed, the -latest idler or porter put on shore, and the very screw in motion, he -felt sure there must be some last attempt, some appeal from the quay. -“Have you one of the name of Harry Joscelyn there?” he thought he could -actually hear them calling; and saw the rapid examination of the list of -passengers, and the shaking of heads of the captain and his immediate -assistants, who were standing together high above all the others. When -there could be no longer any doubt that the steamboat was off, and that -no appeal of the kind had been made, a quick and hot sense of offence -came over Harry. He had been alarmed by the idea of being identified and -stopped at the outset of his voyage: but as soon as he was certain that -he was to be allowed to proceed peaceably on that voyage, his heart -burned within him with a sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> of injury. Now it was indeed all ended -and all over, his life, his name, everything to which he had been -accustomed in the past. He went below to his berth, with a sense of -complete abandonment and desolation which it would be impossible to -describe. It appeared to him that until now he had only been playing -with the idea, amusing himself with all the preparations for a change -which would never really take place, which somehow would be stopped and -prevented at the end. But nobody had put forth a finger to stop him, and -now the end was accomplished and beyond all remedy. Up to the time he -came on shipboard he had not thought of being stopped, but now he felt -as if he had expected it all the time, and was grievously injured and -heartlessly abandoned by all the world and by all his relations, not one -of whom would lift a finger on his behalf. He went down to his shabby -berth in the second cabin, and felt much disposed, like his mother, to -turn his face to the wall. But, perhaps fortunately for Harry, the sea -was rough, and when the vessel steamed out of the Mersey and felt the -full commotion of the waves outside, he was sick, and not in a condition -to care for anything.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> - -<p>In this way he lost the thread of his trouble for the first two days: -and then novelty and excitement began to tell upon him, and he came -altogether to himself. No, not to himself: he did not feel clear about -who he was or what. He came to—Isaac Oliver, looking that new personage -in the face with a bewildered awe of him and wonder at him. Isaac -Oliver! who, he wondered vaguely, could he be? not a son of old Isaac, -who had only little children—a nephew or a cousin, some off-shoot of -the family, if the Olivers could be called a family, a suggestion at -which he smiled in spite of himself. That must be who he was, the -offspring of a race of peasants, no better blood, no other pretensions. -The Joscelyns were a very different class of people, but he had given -them up, he had shaken off all bonds between them and himself. “In for a -penny, in for a pound,” he said to himself, setting his face to it with -a smile, as the steamboat bore up along the Italian coast, and “the old -miraculous mountains hove in sight.” Harry did not feel any special -interest in Italy: he was of the class who never travel, and understand -but little why one place should be more interesting than another. And, -indeed, Leghorn does not sound<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> like Italy to any traveller. What he -knew of it was that it was a busy sea-port, where there were merchants’ -offices and a thriving trade. He did not interest himself much about -anything else. He had his living to make, alone and unbefriended in a -strange country: need was that he should collect himself and pluck up a -heart and think what he was to do, now that he was so near the place of -his destination—or, at least, not what he, but young Isaac Oliver, was -to do. Would any merchant take him in without character, without -introduction or testimonial? This thought was like a cold breath going -through and through him, when he began to think. But he had still a -little money in his pocket, and could afford to wait and look about him -for a week or two. There is always something turning up in a busy place. -And Harry, accustomed to occupation all his life, could not believe that -he would ever starve where there was anything to do.</p> - -<p>They had touched at various other ports on the way, whose chief claims -to be visited were such as Harry had little understanding of, and the -eagerness of his fellow-passengers to get on shore and see these places -had surprised him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> For his own part, he did not see the fun of going to -see a succession of churches and pictures. He had seen but few pictures -in his life, and he had never been taught that they were of much -importance. He had, indeed, privately, an honest contempt for such -things, though he said little about it. He was disposed to ask, “What -are you all staring at?” when he was brought face to face with an early -Master, a thing which he would have banished into the darkest corner had -it been his. But when he got into the harbour at Leghorn he began to -feel himself once more <i>dans son assiette</i>. He knew what the docks -meant, and appreciated the masts of the shipping better than if they had -been the most delicate works of art. It was nothing to Liverpool, but it -was something he could understand and felt at home with. He landed in -better spirits than he had experienced for a very long time. He felt a -moral certainty that he should “get on” here.</p> - -<p>But what a shock it was when the unaccustomed Englishman stepped first -on shore, and found himself in the midst of a strange life, of which he -did not understand even the first word! He knew very well, of course, -that it was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> foreign place, and that English was not spoken there; but -he never had realized that it would be impossible by speaking loudly, or -using a sort of broken English, or some other simple contrivance, to -make the barbarous natives understand. Even an individual much better -educated than poor Harry may be excused if the shock of that -extraordinary solitude and isolation which surrounds him when he finds -himself incapable of understanding a word of what is going on, is a -surprise and irritation as well as a discomfort. He stood on the quay -with his little portmanteau by him—after having been rowed over endless -links of basins, all full of clear green sea-water, cut like a great -jelly by the progress of the boat, to the landing-place—and stood there -aghast, and, indeed, agape, hustled by the crowd, and with a grinning -porter on each side of him making offers of incomprehensible service. He -would not deliver himself over into the hands of any such harpies he was -resolved, not even when they addressed him in a word or two of English, -though the sound was as balm to his ears. He stood over his portmanteau -and angrily pushed the facchini away, but at last got hold of a lad -whose appearance pleased him, who was tidier<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> than the rest. To him -Harry said “Hotel?” in a sort of half-questioning, half-suggestive way; -but this was not enough to get him clear of the officious crowd, who -flew at him with names which conveyed no meaning to his ears. Harry felt -like a man caught in a hailstorm as he was pelted with those big -sonorous syllables. He grew furious with confusion and bewilderment. He -had not been thought specially strong on the Fells, but here his -North-country muscles told. He pushed away the crowd, who he thought -were making a joke of him, and took up his own portmanteau. “The -gentleman is all right,” said some one beside him; “you have no -education, you are without manners, you others,” and somebody took off a -hat and made a salutation, somebody who reached to about Harry’s elbow. -It was civil, and the first part of the sentence had been said in -English, so Harry, learning by experience, conquered his wrath, and was -civil too. “Can I perhaps indicate a hotel?” this new personage said; -“Mister is an English?” Harry stood still and looked down upon his new -acquaintance, not quite clear as to the meaning of what he said. He was -a little man, small and dainty, dressed with quaint care, with high -shirt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>-collars, and a large black cravat tied in a bow, and the most -shining of black hats, which he took off when he spoke. He was -olive-complexioned, with big, dark, soft Italian eyes. “Mister is an -English?” he said; “by paternity I am an English, too. I will indicate a -hotel if the gentleman chooses. It will deliver him from <i>la canaglia</i>, -what you call this rabbel,” he added, with an ingratiating smile, and a -great rattle of his <i>r’s</i>. It was mere good-nature, but Harry was by no -means sure of this, and he knew that foreigners were deceivers. “Thanks, -I won’t trouble you,” he said, abruptly, and lifting his portmanteau—it -was not a big one—strode away. He felt angry and depressed, yet -excited. The astonished look of the little man, who made him another -bow, and replaced his hat with a shrug of his shoulders at the -Englishman’s want of manners, added to his discomfiture. Perhaps he had -made a fool of himself by refusing those good offices which were offered -to him, Harry thought. Perhaps he would have been a bigger fool had he -accepted. Perhaps they were all in a conspiracy to rob him. He strode on -and on, somewhat ashamed of his own appearance with the portmanteau, as -if he were too poor to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> pay anyone to carry it, and thoroughly -bewildered altogether amid the sounds and sights which he did not -understand. But at the end he got into an inn where there was some one -who spoke English, not such a usual accomplishment in these days as it -is now; and where he got a room which was very strange of aspect to the -untravelled young man. The half hour which he passed there, seated upon -the odd little bed, with his portmanteau at his feet upon the tiled -floor, all so strange, so desolate to Harry, was as terrible a moment as -he had ever passed in his life. His very soul was discouraged, sunk low -in his breast with a kind of physical drop and downfall. It was all he -could do not to burst out crying in his forlornness and helplessness and -solitude. What could he do in a place where he did not understand a -word? In many cases novelty is delightful, but there are some in which -it is the most dreadful of all depressing circumstances. Everything, -from the dingy tiles under his feet, and the dark eating-room -downstairs, with its unaccustomed smells, up to the blaze of the Italian -noon, and the incomprehensible tongue that everybody spoke, weighed upon -Harry. He covered his face with his hands, sitting there upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> his bed. -What evil fate had led him to this unknown place? What should he do -without even a name that belonged to him, without a friend? A gasp came -into his throat, and the hand that covered his eyes was wet. He felt -himself bowed down to the very ground.</p> - -<p>After thus “giving way,” however, Harry braced himself up, and recovered -at least the appearance of courage. He made the best toilette he could -by the help of the small washing utensils, which were not so entirely -abhorrent to English customs then as they are now—for baths were not -very general, and washing-basins were but small, in the first quarter, -if not the first half, of this century. And then he sallied forth -refreshed—into a new world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /><br /> -<small>A NEW WORLD.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>ARRY strayed about the town during the afternoon, losing his way, and -finding it again; but got back to the hotel before the important hour of -dinner, of which the English-speaking waiter had informed him. He was -less amused than depressed with all he saw. The perpetual talk that -seemed to be going on around him—sharp, varied, high-pitched, -incomprehensible—gave him at first a sense of offence, as if all these -people were doing it on purpose in order to bewilder him, and afterwards -a profound feeling of discouragement. He was not clever he was aware. He -had never been very great at his school work, and how was he to -accomplish the first preliminary, the very initial step of existence -here,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the learning of the language, to which he had no clue, and of -which he could not make out one word? It seemed to him as if years must -elapse before he could master the very rudiments of the new tongue; and -how was he to seek for work, or to get work to do, not knowing the very -<small>A B C</small> of the life about him? Harry went doubling about the unfamiliar -streets, looking with wistful eyes at every passer-by who had the look -of an Englishman, and asking himself what he was to do. He did not seem -to have any spirit left for the uphill work of learning a language. -There rose up before him a vision of the exercises which he had once -laboured at, daubing himself with ink, and of the verbs which he had got -by heart overnight only to forget them in the morning. To think that he -could not even ask his way! Wherever he strayed he looked at the people -helplessly, as if he had been dumb, and anxiously examined all the -street corners, without venturing to approach any shop, or lay himself -open to any encounter. He was more fortunate than might have been -expected in this point, for he found the right street corner at last, -and the house, with its strange old courtyard, and the long dark <i>sala</i> -which looked into it, and in which the guests<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> were already gathering. -The house had a good reputation, and the large room was nearly full. -Harry, who had never seen anything of the kind before, saw the people -take their places, each appropriating his own turned down chair, and -half finished bottle of wine, and looked for his own place with a -curious sense of the everyday character to the others of all these -proceedings, which to him were so unusual. Yesterday, at the same hour, -no doubt they had all been here, and last year, and as long as anybody -could recollect, munching a slice from the long Italian loaf, the yard -of bread which of itself astonished his simple-minded ignorance. To -think that with such an air of routine and long establishment this -dinner should have been happening methodically every day while he was -pursuing his work at Liverpool, or taking his holiday at home. At home! -The words sounded like a bitter sarcasm to the young man, who had no -home—who had now no identity, no self to fall back upon, but had begun -to exist, so to speak, only a few days ago. And to think this table, -with all its soils and steams, should have been waiting for him all this -time!</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Ere, Sarr, ’ere,” said the English-speaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> waiter, his black eyes -rolling in his head with pride and pleasure in this exhibition of his -gift of languages. He was holding the back of a chair which had been -carefully turned down, and was placed between a fat old Italian, with an -enormous depth of double chin, and a small figure, which Harry -recognised at once as that of the man who had spoken to him on the quay. -“De gentelman speak English,” said the waiter, bowing with amiability -and pleasure. Harry, it is to be feared, did not appreciate the -exertions made in his behalf. The little stranger, on his side, was as -smiling and bland as the attendant, delighted to make himself agreeable. -They both thought it the most pleasant thing in the world to surprise -the sulky and speechless Englishman with a companion to whom he could -talk. “Mister have found his way after all to the Leone,” said his -friend, “I wish myself joy of it. It is what I most did desire. He is -the best hotel, the very best hotel in all Livorno. Most of the -strangers, what we call forestieri, find their ways here. Mister will -find himself very comfortable; the kitchen is excellent, and the -chambers—the chambers!” here the little man spread out his hands with -ecstatic admiration, “so clean, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> comfortable; everything an -Englishman desire.”</p> - -<p>Harry was cross, and he was suspicious. He thought the reappearance of -his first acquaintance looked like a conspiracy, and that probably -between the man and the waiter it was an understood thing that the -Englishman, who was so ignorant, should be made to pay for his -initiation into foreign ways. But he had no intention of being made to -pay if he could possibly help it. He had not the slightest understanding -of the waiter’s benevolent wish to make him comfortable, or the innocent -satisfaction of the other, at once in showing off himself and his -acquirements and showing kindness to a stranger. Harry did not realize -the national character in both, which made them pleased to serve him, -and anxiously on the watch for the look of pleasure which they -anticipated as their reward. An English servant would have looked on -with anticipations of another kind. He would have watched to see the -stranger’s hand stealing into his pocket: and on this point no doubt -Antonio had as sharp an eye as anyone; but his Italian soul, asked for -something more; he wanted to see a glow of pleasure in the face of the -person to whom he had just, as he thought, done a service. Harry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> -refused to pay in this wise. His countenance, somewhat dark before, -settled down into a heavier gloom. He drew in his chair to the table -roughly, losing part of his companion’s address: and he did not look at -the young man who was talking to him, or give him any recompense for the -effort he was making. After a while he made a remark, but it was not a -very civil one. “Why do you call me Mister?” was what he said.</p> - -<p>The stranger looked at him, complacent still, but yet a trifle -abashed—“Because,” he said, stroking a small moustache, and fixing his -eyes upon Harry with a smiling yet deprecating glance, “I do not know -the gentleman’s name.”</p> - -<p>“Even if you don’t know a fellow’s name,” said Harry, ruthless, “it -isn’t English to say Mister. Mister is a title of contempt.” Here the -horrified look of his new acquaintance made him pause. “I mean when it’s -used alone without the name. Low people sometimes use it so—but nobody -who speaks decent English,” Harry said. As he spoke the stranger’s olive -countenance caught flame and grew crimson. He laughed an embarrassed, -uncomfortable little laugh.</p> - -<p>“It is that I am mistaken,” he said; “I have not spoke English moch. The -gentleman will pardon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> my error. My name is Paolo Thompson,” he said, -with a little wave of the hand, introducing himself.</p> - -<p>“You would like to know my name,” said Harry.</p> - -<p>The Italian-Englishman replied, not with any expression of offence, but -with a smiling bow.</p> - -<p>“My name is——” he made a pause. He looked at the interested -countenance beside him, a sense of the ludicrous mingling with his -suspicious distrust of all strangers and foreigners. What did it matter -what he said to a little impostor like this? “Oliver,” he added, with a -laugh. He almost thought the little fellow, though not an Englishman, -must see the incongruity, the absurdity, of associating the name of -Oliver with such a person as Harry Joscelyn. It suddenly became a -practical joke to him, a masquerade which everyone must see through.</p> - -<p>“O—— livr,” said little Thompson, with a long emphasis upon the first -letter, and a hurried slur over the rest; “that right? alright! Mister -O—lvr.”</p> - -<p>“Not Mister,” said Harry, growing benevolent as he felt a little -amusement steal over him, and he tried to give his new acquaintance the -<i>nuance</i> of sound which divides the Mr. of English use<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> and wont from -the two distinct syllables of which Paolo was so fond. They grew friends -over this attempt at unity of pronunciation, or rather Harry permitted -himself to grow friendly, and to ask himself what harm this little -foreigner could do him—a little hop o’ my thumb, whom he could lift in -one hand. As he laughed over his new friend’s attempt to catch the -difference of sound, his friendly feeling increased. He felt his -superiority more and more, and in that superiority his suspicions melted -away. As for little Paolo he took everything amiably. He had no -objection to be laughed at.</p> - -<p>“You mean not bad,” he said, “I know; you mean not to make angry. Laugh, -it is a way of us English. My father was an Englishman. I never know -him; he was died before I am born; but I too am an English by origin. It -is for that I have my place. I am Interpreter. I put what you say in -Italian. I put what one would say to you in English. Thus I please to -both,” said the little man with lively satisfaction; and he laughed when -Harry laughed with genuine good faith. Perhaps it was the reaction from -his past despondency which made Harry laugh so much, perhaps the little -bravado of a stranger<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> feeling himself gazed at and isolated among a -crowd of people alien to him. He attracted the eyes of all the guests at -the table-d’hôte especially of some Americans who had come in late, and -one other Englishman who regarded him gloomily from the other end of the -table, and concluded that his countryman was having too much to drink, -but that it was not his business. Harry was not taking too much to -drink; he was making wry faces at the sour Nostrali, which was the only -wine provided without a special order. Harry did not understand any wine -except Port and Sherry, and he despised the sour stuff of which he took -one big gulp and no more; he did not know what else to order, and he did -not like to mix up Paolo in his affairs so far as to ask his advice on -this point. Paolo for his part was drinking a little of his wine in a -tumblerful of water, not without some alarm lest the <i>eau rougie</i> should -go to his head. He told Harry all his story as they sat together. His -father had been an English clerk, sent out from England to an office in -Leghorn, who had married an Italian girl, and died in the first year of -their marriage. Paolo was very proud of that fine and aristocratic name -of Thompson, of which there was a Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> and many Sirs, he informed Harry -with great but smiling seriousness; his mother, though she had been so -young, would never re-marry herself, though pressed on all sides to do -so—such was her devotion to her youthful husband who was English, and -to the romantic and euphonious name which he had left her. The young man -grew every moment more friendly. Harry’s suspicions all floated away as -he listened to the story, and laughed at the accent and grammar of his -new acquaintance, who laughed too with perfect good-humour. Thompson—he -was a fit associate for an Oliver, Harry said to himself, knowing -nothing about any Oliver save Isaac whose name he had appropriated. -After dinner was over Paolo proposed that they should go for a stroll; -and though Harry had done nothing else but stroll all the afternoon with -very small advantage, yet he was quite willing to begin again with the -aid of his friend’s knowledge. It was less lonely than sitting in the -dreadful little room of which Paolo had ventured to say that it was so -comfortable, and exactly what an Englishman liked. Harry shuddered at -the thought; he had never been used to sit in his bedroom, and he could -not but feel it a sort of humiliation that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> had no other room to sit -in. His new friend was a wonderful example of costume to the untrained -taste of Harry. He wore trousers of a large check, but a black evening -coat over them, a large shirt-front, a black ribbon at his neck tied in -a bow, and varnished shoes. He was very well contented with his -appearance. When he added an opera-hat to all this finery, the sensation -in his little bosom of thorough self-content was very warm. Harry could -not but laugh at the little exquisite, whose gorgeous apparel was so -unlike anything he had ever seen.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know if I dare to walk out in my coloured clothes with such a -swell as you are, Thompson,” he said. Paolo looked down upon himself -delighted. He knew he was well-dressed.</p> - -<p>“You are all right,” he said, “an English, that covers all; but when one -is only by origin, more must be done. Komm a-long.” He stretched up his -hand, which he had just clothed in light kid, to Harry’s arm, who had no -gloves, nor any other advantage. The Angelus was sounding from all the -churches as they set out. Harry could not but wonder if there was an -evening sermon, or if it was a series of prayer-meetings which were -going on. He was much surprised that foreigners should have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> such devout -habits. It surprised him, too, to see how soon it got dark; but as it -happened there was a brilliant moon which soon made the streets as light -as day. And as soon as the sacred hour of sunset, the fatal hour which -Italians dread, was over, the streets filled with a crowd which still -more surprised Harry. Before all the cafés the pavements were -crowded—not only men, but women, seated at the little tables enjoying -the freshness of the lovely evening, and making such a hum and babble of -talk as nothing but an unknown tongue can produce. A language which is -familiar to us never sounds so like an uproar and tumult as one that is -unintelligible. Harry’s first thought was that the people about him were -all quarrelling; his second that this chatter was the riotous and -boundless gaiety which he had always heard attributed to “foreigners;” -but the scene amused him, though it was so unintelligible, and by and by -a degree of toleration which years at home could not have conveyed to -him, began to penetrate his mind. Perhaps after all it was only the -different habits of these unknown people, and neither quarrelling nor -riot. Sometimes one would jump up in the midst of a conversation as if -impelled by a sudden outburst of fury, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> address his friends, -gesticulating wildly; but after Harry had taken the alarm, and sat ready -to strike in if any harm happened, he noticed that the friends of the -violent person took it quite calmly, turning upon him looks which were -full of smiling placidity, and evidently fearing nothing. In the same -way when two men were threading their way along the street together, one -would suddenly drop the other’s arm, and standing still, discourse with -every mark of excitement for a minute, then resume his friend’s arm and -go on again as if there had been no interruption. An Englishman would -have knocked down his adversary with much less demonstration. Harry felt -himself obliged to pause too, and give an eye to these personages; and -when he also sat down with his companion at one of the little tables, -his attention to Paolo’s doubtful English was constantly interrupted by -the same supposed need of watchfulness in case the party next to them -should come to blows. But all the other people took it quite quietly, to -Harry’s great surprise.</p> - -<p>“Why do these beggars jump up in that way and look as if they were going -to knock some other fellow down?” Harry said at last.</p> - -<p>“Beggares?” said Paolo, looking round hastily;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> and then, for he was a -young man anxious to improve himself and quick of apprehension, he -jumped at the Englishman’s meaning. “Ah! that is English for questi -Signori, these gentlemen? beggares! capisco, capisco!” said Paolo, -clapping his hands as at an excellent joke; “they do nothing but make a -little conversation, what you call talk,—these beggares;” and he burst -forth once more into a genial peal.</p> - -<p>Harry was half pleased to have achieved such a facile success, and half -alarmed lest perhaps Paolo might be laughing at him. He said with a -suppressed growl, “Conversation! do you call that conversation? I -thought they were going to fly at each other’s throats.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, no—never fly at each other’s throats; they have too much -education,” said Paolo; “it is the Italian animation, that is all. An -English is what you call quiet. He talks down here, not out of his -mout,” and Paolo beat himself upon the breast, and pointed to about the -spot out of which Harry’s deep bass proceeded. Harry was by no means -pleased with this familiarity, but he reflected that the little man was -his only friend among all these strangers, and subdued his displeasure. -He did not know very well what to do<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> with the pink syrup that was -furnished him to drink: that, and the sour wine, and the black coffee, -were all alike out of Harry’s way. Oh, that he could have had but one -mighty draught of English beer to clear all these cobwebs out of his -throat! But this was an indulgence, like so many others, to be hoped for -no more.</p> - -<p>After Paolo had sipped the rosolio which Harry contemplated with such a -mingling of alarm and disgust, they got up and continued their walk. -By-and-bye, in the full moonlight, they strolled towards the port, and -walked about on the quays, among the shipping, which threw up its black -lines of masts, and dark lace of cordage against the silvery light of -which the sky was full. Harry was interested about all this, much more -than about churches or pictures. And he threaded his way among the -ropes, and piles of barrels and cases with which the quays were -encumbered, with a stir of curiosity and hope. Should he find his life -and work within the circle which surrounded these instruments of wealth? -He paid but little attention to the talk of his companion as they went -along. He seemed to see once more the new career before him which he had -been doubting an hour or two before. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> was not a very magnificent -prospect: yet work that suited him might surely be found when there were -goods to be exported, and counting houses to look after these goods. He -did not know what might become of him in this strange place, but -whatever his fortune might be it was all he could look forward to, and -his mind seemed to take a new start from the appearance before him of a -possibility, a strain of existence which he understood. He forgot, as he -listened to Paolo’s chatter going on by his side—which filled him with -a vague, superficial sense of superiority—all about the new language to -be learned, and the difficulties which had almost overwhelmed him in the -afternoon. Thus he went on, allowing his companion to talk, and thinking -his own thoughts, till they emerged from the immediate regions of the -basins and docks and came back to the streets. They were crossing one -which was very dimly lighted, and which Paolo informed him led into the -better quarter of the town, when they came in sight, or, rather in -hearing, of a party of sailors in a noisy state of exhilaration. What -could they have been drinking, Harry wondered, thinking of the sour wine -and the rosolio, to make them so convivial?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> They were singing rude -choruses, and making night hideous with jokes and loud laughter, bearing -a wonderful family resemblance to noises of the same kind which Harry -had heard near the port of Liverpool—when there suddenly crossed the -moonlit-road, between the revellers and the two orderly passengers, a -couple of female figures moving rapidly, figures very easily identified -as those of an elder and younger woman—a sedate and ample personage, -with a girl clinging to her. Two of the sailors, with a holloa of -satisfaction, started forward in pursuit. They overtook the women when -they were close to Harry and his companion, and one of them seized the -girl by the arm. She gave a frightened cry, and the other woman, -throwing her arm round her, pushed the men away, pouring forth a volley -of rapid Italian, of which Harry of course did not understand a word. He -made a stride forward to the fray. Paolo, on his side, who was small and -not valorous, did his best to hold him back.</p> - -<p>“It is not our business,” he said, with a certain faltering in his -voice.</p> - -<p>“Tell them to let go the girl,” said Harry, with brief determination.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It is not our business,” said the alarmed interpreter.</p> - -<p>“Tell them they had better let go that girl,” repeated the young -Englishman.</p> - -<p>Then little Paolo stood forth, with a courage which was not his own, and -addressed the sailors. He took off his hat with the utmost politeness -and remonstrated. Harry, beginning, by dint of hearing them repeated, to -distinguish the words, at last understood that “Questo Signor” must mean -himself; but the sailors treated the remonstrance with contempt. The -other one took hold of the girl by the other arm, while she screamed, -and her companion raved and scolded at them, pushing and struggling with -all her might. Harry stepped forward into the moonlight. He lifted up -his clenched fist and his big bass voice. “Let go that girl,” he shouted -in good English, with a voice that roused all the echoes. The men did -not know a word he said; but they understood him, which was more to the -purpose. They let go their hold in a minute, and stood staring at the -intruder as sheepishly as any Englishmen could have done, and perhaps -also with a touch of shame. Little Paolo, trembling yet triumphant, kept -close to the champion, while he stood and faced them, ready for -what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>ever might happen. It was not for nothing that Harry was a -Joscelyn. He stood well up to them with a watchful eye and a ready arm. -The women had escaped under cover of this unexpected interposition from -their first assailants, but another pursuer by this time had got upon -their track. “Let’s have a look at your face, my pretty lass,” this lout -said, as he rolled along. Harry’s blood was up in a moment. “Oh, by -Jove!” he cried, as if the sound of his native tongue had been the last -aggravation, “this is too much. I know what to say to you, at least, my -fine fellow,” and he turned upon his countryman like lightning, and -promptly knocked him down. “I am not going to stand any nonsense from -<i>you</i>,” he said.</p> - -<p>It was the affair of a moment—no more. The women flew along the street, -disappearing up the nearest opening. Harry strode on after them with his -blood up, but walking with the most dignified tranquillity. He would not -even turn round to see what had happened. “If he thought I was going to -stand <i>him</i>,” he said, as he went along, “that fellow, by Jove! but he -was in the wrong box.” As for little Paolo, between fright and -admiration, he was at his wit’s end. He danced along,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> now hurrying -Harry on, now facing the other way, walking backwards to keep the other -party in sight, and uttering alarmed entreaties. “Run! run! What if you -’ave kill him?” he cried. “Vergene Santissima! they are coming. You ’ave -done it now, you ’ave done it, and no one to help. Per Bacco! and he -goes as if it were a festa. Run, Mister, run!”</p> - -<p>“I told you not to call me Mister,” said Harry, walking on with perfect -coolness and at his ordinary pace. Paolo was half beside himself. -“Perhaps you have kill a man,” he cried, “and you stop to set right my -English—at such a moment——”</p> - -<p>“Pooh!” said Harry; he would not have quickened his steps for a fortune. -“Don’t you know the beggar is an Englishman? A broken head won’t hurt -him. Let’s keep the women in sight, they might get into more trouble.” -Paolo followed him, trembling and hurried as they got further off; but -the noisy sailors were busy about their fallen comrade, and made no -attempt to follow. They were too much startled by the summary -proceedings of the stranger, and kept back by a certain sense of justice -which seldom fails in such an affray. The little Italian kept close to -Harry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> like a dog, rushing about him, now a little in advance, now a -little behind. “He ’ave pick himself up,” he said, looking back. “Dio! -how the English understand each other! He is not kill.”</p> - -<p>“Killed!” cried Harry, contemptuously. “It takes more than that to kill -an Englishman, even a beast like that fellow. You may palaver with your -own kind, but I know what to do with mine. Come along, Thompson. Where -have those women gone?”</p> - -<p>Here Paolo caught him by the arm, dragging him into the narrow street by -which the flying figures had disappeared. One side of it was in almost -perfect darkness, while the other was white and brilliant in the -moonlight. “You like to know who it was,” he said. “Per Bacco! I know.”</p> - -<p>“It does not matter to me who it was,” said Harry, “so long as they are -safe, that is all I care for. Women have no business to be out so late -at night.”</p> - -<p>At this Paolo nodded his head a great many times in assent. “But that is -English too,” he said. “How you are strange! You let a young lady go in -the street, and you kill a man, and never think more of it! and the man -when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> is kill, get up and walk away instead of to avenge himself! You -are strange, very strange. I understand you very well, for I am an -English too.”</p> - -<p>After this somewhat startling incident, however, they did not linger -long on their way. It had stirred the blood in Harry’s veins and given -him the new start he wanted. There is nothing like a new incident for -familiarising the mind with any great change in this life. Hitherto he -had thought of nothing but his own transmogrification. Now he had -something else to think of. He got back to his inn unmolested and -uninterrupted, and he found his dreary little room not so dreary when it -became a shelter for his fatigue, and a refuge in which to think over -the strange excitement of this first new day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /><br /> -<small>SETTING OUT IN LIFE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>EXT morning Harry was woke by the appearance of his little friend at -his bedside. For a moment it was all fantastic to him like a dream, the -narrow slip of room with its tall walls, and straight windows, and the -strange little figure by his bedside. “Hallo,” he said, “who are you, -and what do you want?” opening his sleepy eyes, and springing up in bed. -Paolo retreated with a little alarm.</p> - -<p>“I go to the bureau,” he said, “but before I go I am here to say good -morning. What will you do without me?” the little man added with great -simplicity. “Get lost, get into what you call skrape. Antonio, he speak -a little. I come to advise that you take him with you. It will be only -five lire, not very moche for an English.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I wish you could remember,” said Harry pettishly, “to say an -Englishman. An English is no sense: you never hear <i>me</i> say that.”</p> - -<p>“Alright,” said Paolo good-humouredly. “I will remember; but it will be -better to take Antonio; he shows you everything, all the palaces and -streets, and you give him cinque lire—five,” holding up his fingers -spread out to show the sum, and counting them with his other hand, “and -you talk, he tell you things in Italian, you make a lesson out of him,” -he added with a grin, showing all his white teeth.</p> - -<p>It was a sensible suggestion, but Harry was perverse. “That is all very -well,” he said, “but I don’t care about seeing your palaces; what I want -is to get something to do. Ain’t there a <i>Times</i>, or something with -advertisements? where a fellow could see what’s wanted?”</p> - -<p>Paolo looked at him with a doubtful air, and his head on one side like a -questioning sparrow. He was so small and so spare, and Harry so big, -stretched out in the small bed which could not contain him, that the -simile held in all points. It appeared unnecessary that he should do -more than put out his hand to make an end altogether of his adviser, and -there seemed a con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>sciousness of this in the little man himself, who, -recollecting last night, hopped a little farther off every time that -Harry advanced leaning on his elbow, and projecting himself out of bed.</p> - -<p>“You bring letters, you are recommended?” he said. “No?” A cloud came -over Paolo’s face; then he brightened again. “You come with me,” he -said. “The Consul, that is the prince of the English—man. You come wid -me, and I will recommend you. I will introduce you. He have much -confidence, what you call trost, in me.”</p> - -<p>“But you don’t know anything about me,” said Harry.</p> - -<p>Paolo looked at him with an effusion of admiration and faith, “Siamo -amici,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart with a sentiment and air -which to the cynical Englishman were nothing less than theatrical. But -Harry did not understand what the words meant.</p> - -<p>“That is all very well,” he said again, supposing that this was a mere -compliment without meaning. “But what could you say about me? nothing! -You don’t know me any more than the Consul does—or anybody here.”</p> - -<p>“Between friends,” said Paolo, “there is not the need of explanation. I -understand you, Mister.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Are you a Christian or a Protestant,” he added -quickly, “have you a name of baptism, perhaps?” Paolo did not want to -hurt the feelings of his new friend in case he was not provided with -this article. But Harry’s pride was wounded to the quick.</p> - -<p>“A Christian,” he cried, “or a Protestant? I am both a Protestant and a -Christian! I never heard such horrible intolerance in all my life. It is -you who are not Christians, you papists praying to idols—worshipping -saints, and old bones, and all sort of nonsense.” Harry was so much in -earnest that his face grew crimson, and Paolo retreated yet another -step.</p> - -<p>“You heat yourself; but it is not needed,” he said, waving his hand with -deprecating grace. “Me, I am above prejudices. Here one calls one’s self -Giovanni or Giacomo, or Paolo, as with me; and when the person is -respectable of years, Ser Giovanni or Ser Giacomo; but if one has not a -name of baptism, it is the same, that make no difference——”</p> - -<p>“Do you take me for a heathen that never was christened?” cried Harry. -“My name is——” here he stopped and laughed, but grew redder, with a -dusky colour; but “in for penny in for a pound,” as he had already -remarked to himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>—“my name is Isaac—Isaac Oliver, as I told you,” -he said.</p> - -<p>“Bene, bene!” said Paolo. “It is enough, I will say to the consul: here -is Mister Isaac, who is my friend. He is English—man; yes, I -recollect—man; and I respond for him. He will be so condescending as to -take a situation; he will interpret like me; he will make the Italian -into the English, and the English into the Italian.”</p> - -<p>“But how can I do that?” said Harry, “when I don’t understand one word -of your lingo? I can’t do that.”</p> - -<p>Paolo’s countenance lengthened once more; but he speedily recovered -himself.</p> - -<p>“That will teach itself,” he said. “I will talk; I will tell you -everything. Aspetto! there is now, presently, incessantly—an occasion. -Komm, komm along; something strikes me in the head. But silence, the -Vice-Consul, he it is that will settle all.”</p> - -<p>Harry did not think much of Paolo’s recommendation; but yet the idea of -appealing to the Vice-Consul was worth consideration. The thought of an -Englishman to whom he could tell his story—or if not his story, yet a -story, something which would seem as an account of himself—was like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> -rope thrown out to him amid a waste of waters. And, as an Englishman, he -would have a right to be listened to. English officials are not like -American, the natural vassals of their countrymen; but still, when a man -is at his wit’s end, there is something in the idea that a person of -authority, in whom he has a vested interest, is within reach, which is -consolatory. To be introduced to this functionary, however, by Paolo, -whose position did not seem to be very important, did not please Harry’s -pride. He sent the little fellow away with a vague promise of thinking -of it, which disappointed the friendly little man. Paolo could not -restrain his anxious desire to be of use. He went off to the Farmacia to -buy soap and tooth-powder for his amico, and even proposed to fetch him -the little bicchierino of acquavite, with which some people begin their -day, a proposal which filled Harry with horror. Paolo put his -dressing-table in order with the care of a woman, and lingered, anxious -to do something more. He would have brushed his friend’s clothes, if -Harry would have let him. He was proud of his new discovery, the big -Englishman, whom he had secured to himself, and whom he admired in -proportion to his own smallness and inconsiderable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>ness. Something of -the pleasure of a nurse with an infant, and of a child with a new toy, -was in his bustling anxious delight. When at last, however, he was half -forced, half persuaded to go away, Paolo made a few steps back from the -door and held up a warning finger.</p> - -<p>“Mister Isaack mio,” he said, “one must not any more knock down. It is -not understood in Livorno. That which can well do itself in England is -different: here—it is not understood.” His face had become very grave, -then a deprecatory smile of apology broke over it. “In Italy they are in -many things behind,” he said. “It is not—understood.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be afraid, Paul-o,” said Harry, laughing, “I shan’t knock down -anyone to-day. Even in England we don’t do it but when it is necessary. -You may trust me, I shall knock nobody down to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Alright, alright!” said Paolo, with a beaming countenance. He turned -back again to instruct his friend at what hour it would be best to come -to the bureau. “I will speak, and you shall be expected. I will respond -for you,” the little man said.</p> - -<p>At last he went away full of amiable intentions and zeal in his friend’s -cause, zeal which deserved<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> a better reward. For Harry did not build -much upon the influence of Paolo. It hurt his pride to think of -presenting himself anywhere under the wing of this little Italian clerk. -He would stand upon his own qualities, he said to himself, not upon the -ready faith and rash undertaking of a stranger; but though he put it in -this way, it was not in reality because he objected to Paolo’s trust in -him, or thought it rash as another man might have done, but because he -felt himself Paolo’s social superior. It would be hard to say on what -this consciousness was founded. Harry’s only superiority had been his -family, and that he had put away. As he was dressing, he turned over a -great many things in his mind which he might say to the Vice-Consul. Few -young people understand how much better policy it is in all such cases -to speak the truth than to invent the most plausible of stories, and -Harry was not wiser than his kind. He made up various fictions about -himself explaining how it was that he thus presented himself alone and -unfriended in an altogether strange place—all of which he would have -stated with a faltering tongue and abashed countenance, so as to impress -the falsehood of them upon the hearer;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> for to invent excuses is one -thing, and to produce them with force and consistency another. -Successful lying, like everything else, wants practice; few men can -succeed in it who only do it once in a way. It requires study, and -careful consideration of probabilities, so that the artist shall not be -put entirely out by an unforeseen question: and it needs an excellent -memory, to retain all that has been said, so as not to contradict -previous statements. Harry possessed none of these qualities, but then -he was not aware of the want of them; and the thing which made him -depart from tale after tale was not any suspicion of their weakness, or -his weakness, but an inability to please himself in the details of his -romance. And then the thought of going as it were hat in hand, to ask -the Consul to provide him with employment, and the inevitable starting -forth of little Paolo to pledge himself for everything his friend might -say, discouraged him. He grew downhearted as he put himself into the -best apparel he had, and brushed his hair, and endeavoured to look his -best. Would it not be better to start off again, to go, though he had -made up his mind against it, to America after all? There, there would be -no language to learn, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> difficulty in understanding what was said to -him. He went down and swallowed his breakfast, coffee and bread, which -seemed to him the most wretched fare, turning this over in his mind. But -for one thing he did not like to be beaten; no Englishman does, he said -to himself; and Harry was of the primitive, simple kind of Englishman -who clings to all national characteristics. He could not bear to be -beaten, to contradict himself as it were, and depart from his plan. -While he was thinking of all this, however, a brilliant expedient -occurred to him. Though he was reluctant to tell his own story, he was -not disposed to screen himself by any fiction of excuses from the -consequences of anything he had done; and it was undeniable that he had -“got into a row” on the previous night. No Englishman, he reflected, -would think the worse of a young fellow who had knocked down a drunken -sailor to prevent him from molesting a woman; but it would be as well to -go and tell the story of this little incident in case of any ulterior -proceedings. Harry fairly chuckled over his own wisdom in hitting upon -so admirable a way of presenting himself to the representative of his -country. He had never before felt himself so clever. He munched his dry -bread and drank<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> his coffee with a wry face, but something like a mental -relish at least. Little Paolo’s friendly conscience would not need to be -strained. He would be able to bear witness of the facts in all -sincerity, and, if anything were to come of it, there would be at least -a friend in court, a valuable advocate secured. Antonio, the waiter, -drew near while Harry came to this conclusion, and watched him -dispatching his simple refreshment with friendly looks. The Italians -admired the young Englishman’s fine limbs, and height and strength, and -they made a pet of him because he was a stranger and helpless; perhaps -the waiter was not without an eye to substantial rewards, but he had at -the same time a most friendly eye to Harry’s helplessness, and an -amiable desire to make him comfortable. He stood and watched him eating -with sympathy.</p> - -<p>“Ze gentleman would like an egg, perhaps, Sarr?” he said.</p> - -<p>“I should like half-a-dozen,” said Harry with a sigh; “but no, no, never -mind—never mind; for the present this will do.”</p> - -<p>“Ze gentlemen Italian eat no breakfast,” said Antonio; “ze eat—after; -but I will command for ze English gentleman, if it makes pleasure to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> -him, ze English breakfast. There is already one here.”</p> - -<p>“One—breakfast!” said Harry, surprised.</p> - -<p>“One,” said Antonio, with a finger in the air, “English-man, and two -tree Americans; ze eat of ze beef in ze early morning. It is -extraordinary: eat of ze beef when you comes out of your bed. But it is -the same—it is the same; that makes nothing to our padrone; and I will -command it for ze gentleman if he will.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you would,” said Harry, “another time; dry bread is not much to -breakfast upon: and the bread is very queer stuff.”</p> - -<p>“It is good bread,” said Antonio, “Sarr, very good bread; bettare far -than ze bread of London;” he nodded his head as he spoke with -self-satisfaction. “Ze gentleman would like me go wid him—show him all -ze places, and ze grand catedral, and all that ze English gentleman go -over ze world to see?”</p> - -<p>“No, Antonio; I don’t care about cathedrals, but you can come with me to -the English Consul’s if you like, and show me the way.”</p> - -<p>“I like very moche, Sarr,” said Antonio, with a grin. “Ze English -gentlemans please me. Zey is astonished at everyting. Ze pictures—O!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> -bellissimi! and ze palazzi, and ze churches. It is noting but O! and O! -as long as zey are walking about. But, Sarr,” said Antonio, coming -closer, “Livorno is not moche. It is a city of trade. Com to Firenze, -Sarr, if you would see beautiful pictures and beautiful houses. Ah! that -is something to see. Or to Venezia—better still. I am of Venezia, Sarr. -Ze gentleman will not say to Signor Paolo that I tell him so, but -Livorno—pouff!” Antonio blew it away in a puff of disdain. “Firenze and -Venezia, there is where you will see pictures—everyware—of Raphael and -Michael Angelo, and Tiziano, and——”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care much about pictures,” said Harry, calmly. “I like the -shipping better. You can take me to the docks if you like. I don’t want -you to tell me about them. I like to see things I know about myself. But -I tell you what, Antonio, you may teach me the names in Italian, if you -like; that will always be making a little progress,” Harry said, -suddenly bethinking himself of Paolo’s suggestion.</p> - -<p>Antonio’s face had lengthened by several inches. An English gentleman -who did not want to see pictures was a personage of whom he had no -un<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>derstanding. He began to think that Harry was not a genuine -Englishman after all.</p> - -<p>“Ze signor is perhaps Tedesco—no? Or Americain—no? I have known many -English,” said Antonio, gravely, “but zey all run after ze pictures. Ze -gentleman is what you call an original. Benissimo! that makes noting to -me. Ze sheeps in ze harbour are very fine sheeps. You will not see no -bettare—no, not in England. Ze signor wishes—eh?—perhaps to make -observations, to let ze Government—ze ministers know, Italy is now a -great country, and ze others are jealous. You fear we will take ze trade -all away?”</p> - -<p>“Not so bad as that, Antonio,” said Harry, with a great laugh. “Where I -have come from I wish I could show you the docks; they are about ten -times as big as these.”</p> - -<p>Antonio grinned from ear to ear. He did not believe a word of what Harry -said. “If it pleases to ze gentleman,” he said, laughing too. He was -perfectly tolerant of the joke, and glad to see his <i>protegé</i> cheerful. -Then Harry jumped up from the table, poorly sustained for the business -he had in hand by his light meal, but somewhat anxious to get through -the ordeal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> he had proposed to himself. Antonio, however, who appeared -presently in the well-worn and assiduously brushed costume of a <i>laquais -de place</i>, could not quite let him off the inevitable sightseeing. He -led him to the Duomo and into the great Square with a pretence that this -was on the way to the Consul’s office, and made him look at again, -whether he would or not, the same public buildings which he had gazed at -dreamily as he wandered about the streets the day before, and looked at -languidly in the moonlight under Paolo’s active guidance. He had been -but twenty-four hours in Leghorn, and already he had associations with -the street-corners, which probably he would never forget. Already this -new world was acquiring known features of acquaintanceship; his life -beginning to put forth threads like a spider’s web, and twist and twine, -the new with the old. It startled Harry to feel that he was no longer a -stranger here, where he had landed so forlorn. After the round which -Antonio beguiled him into making, it was about eleven o’clock before -they reached the door over which the well-known British symbol was put -up. The outer office was full of people and business, sea-captains and -merchants’ clerks, and even a few examples of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> kind of traveller who -is most common in Italy, he who travels for pleasure and not for -business. Harry had to wait among the rest who were seeking an audience -of the Vice-Consul. Here Antonio left him, and he could not see anything -like the olive-countenance and brilliant costume of Paolo; but it was an -English group among which he stood. The clerks even spoke English, if -one or two of them displayed the tongue-tied hesitation which is common -to all classes when they speak a language imperfectly understood. One of -the tourists did his best to draw Harry into conversation, lamenting the -cruel fate which had detained him in such a place. He was just starting -for Pisa, this pilgrim said, where there was really something to see. -“One might as well be in Liverpool as here,” he said. Harry did not make -any reply. This was just the reason why he himself approved of Leghorn -more than of any other place he had seen. When it came to his turn at -last, almost all the other appellants and petitioners had been seen and -dismissed. They all wanted something; and Harry’s new acquaintance had -talked and worried him so much with his dislike to a place where there -was so little to see, that he had almost forgot the manner<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> in which he -had arranged with himself to open his own story; when at length -everybody else was despatched, and he had to go forward to his audience. -His heart beat a little faster as he went in. The Vice-Consul was a man -of a portly presence, something like an English merchant of the higher -class, with grizzled hair, and an aspect of great respectability and -authority. He was fully conscious of his dignity as the representative -of the British Government, and of Her Majesty herself, amid an alien and -inferior race. He did not think much of Italy or the Italian people, and -he felt it was his mission in life to keep them down. He was seated in -great state upon a large chair, which swung round with him when he -moved. His table, his papers, the manner in which he appeared over them, -with the air of a judge on the bench, was very imposing to a stranger, -especially when that stranger was in difficulty and came to ask help. He -made Harry a very formal bow, and pointed to a seat near, which had -something of the air of a seat for the prisoner at the bar.</p> - -<p>“What can I do for you?” he said, with a dignified inclination of his -head; after the first glance his look softened. He was used to see a -great many people, and it was a compliment to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> Harry’s appearance that -it interested the Vice-Consul. He almost smiled upon him, with a -benignity in which he did not very often indulge.</p> - -<p>Then it was that Harry’s real difficulties began; but how thankful he -was that it was a true story he was telling, and not a fictitious -account of himself!</p> - -<p>“I came to tell you, Sir,” he said, “of something that occurred last -night—a scrape—that is to say a row I got into. I suppose I must call -it a row.”</p> - -<p>“It is a great pity when strangers get into rows in a foreign town, -Mr.——Oliver. I think you said Oliver?”</p> - -<p>What a fool I was thought Harry!—as he did after every new production -of that name; but his last chance of reclaiming his own was now over.</p> - -<p>“What you say is quite true,” he said, “and I should not have been such -a fool but for urgent cause. I knocked down a fellow who was annoying a -lady. He deserved a great deal more than I gave him; if he had been an -Italian I might have hesitated, but he was an Englishman. So I just -knocked him down.”</p> - -<p>“Very wrong, very wrong,” said the Vice-Consul, “and a curious way of -showing your preference for your fellow-countrymen. But you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> had better -tell me all about it. When did this occur, and where?”</p> - -<p>Harry described the place as well as he could. “There was a lot of -them,” he said. “The Italians—if they were Italians—gave way when I -spoke to them. I’ll do them that justice. The English fellow, I did not -say anything to him. I was not going to argue with a brute like that. I -just quietly knocked him down. It was a young lady and a woman with her. -You see, if I had stood there talking, the others might have been up to -us, and have given her more annoyance. I daresay it did not hurt the -fellow much; and if he’s a man he’ll take it quietly, for he deserved -it; but I thought it was perhaps best to let you know.”</p> - -<p>The Vice-Consul had started slightly when Harry described, as well as he -could, the locality in which this incident took place. Now he asked -quickly, “And the lady—did you know her? and did she get clean away?”</p> - -<p>“Know her!” said Harry, “I only arrived here yesterday; besides I did -not want to know her: it might not have been pleasant for her. We -watched her safe out of reach; indeed we went on till we heard a door -shut where she lived,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> I suppose. No, it was not for that. It was to say -that if the fellow complained, or brought any action, or anything of -that sort—I wanted you, Sir, being the representative of England, to -know the real facts. That is how it was.”</p> - -<p>There was a smile about the Vice-Consul’s mouth. “As it happens I have -heard about it already,” he said. “I’ll speak to you farther on the -subject by-and-bye—Don’t be alarmed, it will do you no harm; sit down -and rest yourself, and wait for a few minutes. I am going in to lunch -presently, and I’ll talk to you then,” the Vice-Consul said. Harry did -not know what to think. The consequences could not be very bad, since -this great functionary restrained a smile; but there was evidently a -second chapter to the adventure. Harry withdrew as he was directed to -the other end of the office, and there stood gazing at railway -timetables, and pictures of ships. There was all about a line of vessels -to America from Genoa which had lately been established, just the very -thing for him if he intended to do what he had been thinking of. But -Harry scarcely knew what he was looking at. All these questions seemed -things of the past. What was the Vice-Consul going to say to him? What -was to come of it? Till he knew this he could not think of anything -else.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /><br /> -<small>THE VICE-CONSUL’S DAUGHTER.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> DOOR in the Vice-Consul’s office opened into a long passage with a row -of windows on one side, which communicated with his house. When the hour -came at which, after the comfortable fashion of leisurely Italian towns, -the office was shut up for the midday meal, the Vice Consul made Harry -an amiable sign to follow. He led him through this passage, which looked -upon a courtyard full of plants, where a fountain trickled in the -sunshine, into a large cool room with all its <i>jalousies</i> closed, and in -which for a minute or two he saw nothing. He was being introduced into a -sort of enchanted country it seemed, unlike anything he had ever known -or thought of; the tiled floor was almost covered with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> soft rugs, -according to a fashion not then known in England, and the furniture -dimly discerned in the gloom, was like rocks at sea to the stranger who -had no chart of the confused and intricate passage. Something white in a -corner, something which moved a little when they came in, was all he -saw, and he could not make out even what that was till his eyes had got -accustomed to the light. Then he perceived with a great tremor and shock -of shyness that it was a lady, a slight girl in a white dress who looked -up to nod to her father, then seeing a second figure behind him, rose -hastily with a shy grace. Harry was still more shy than she was. He was -not accustomed to the society of ladies. And he was dreadfully hungry, -having had nothing but that dry bread and coffee, a circumstance which -made him still more depressed and timid. He did not at all know why he -was introduced so suddenly into this other world. He thought he was only -going to an inner office, or perhaps—but that was a blessedness he -dared scarcely hope for—that the Consul in his kindness had meant to -give him some luncheon. But the drawing-room confused him wholly; he had -done nothing to merit such an introduction. He only half took in -accordingly the meaning of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the words the Consul said, “Look here, Rita, -I have brought your champion of last night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” That purely English exclamation sounded to Harry the sweetest -syllable he had ever heard. The white figure came a step forward. By -this time he began to see through the gloom, and what he saw was a very -young face, with two great dark eyes, lifted to him full of wonder and -pleasure. Then a hand was put out, “Was it you?” she said eagerly. “Oh, -yes, I remember!” And before he was aware the hand, smaller and softer -than any such article previously known to him, touched his for a moment. -Harry dropped into the chair which the Vice-Consul pointed to him in -utter confusion of surprise. He was not even able to notice what an -extraordinary advantage to him such an introduction was. He was simply -astonished more than words could say.</p> - -<p>“This is Mr. Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul. “He came and told me all -about it without a notion who you were. And you see how surprised he is. -He thought, I suppose, I was taking him into a kind of genteel prison. -It must be added that, if you only arrived yesterday, you lost no time -in getting into a row.”</p> - -<p>“Did you only arrive yesterday?” said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> delightful little voice, in -which there was a flavour of something not English, though the English -was perfect. “Oh, how glad I am that you did arrive then! What would -have become of us otherwise? for no one but an Englishman wandering -about the most unlikely places could ever have found himself just -there.”</p> - -<p>“And nobody but an English girl would have risked herself in such a -place,” said the father. “I hope you will take that to heart, my dear. -This girl,” he added, turning to the young man, “is by way of despising -all Italian precautions. She is an English girl, she tells everybody, -and she will not be a slave like the others: and old Benedetta is an old -fool and never goes against her. One of her pensioners was ill last -night, that was why the monkey was out at such an hour. When I am at the -Club there is nobody to put her to bed.”</p> - -<p>“As if I was a little child to be put to bed! It was the dearest old -woman, and she would see me. The priest had been sent for and the -sacraments; could I refuse to go—now could I? And how was I to know men -were so dreadful? But you see, papa, there are always the good angels -about.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“When I was young the angels were all feminine,” the Vice-Consul said, -“and we called the ladies by these pretty names, not the ladies us.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you never did so much for any girl. Oh, how frightened I was -when that man took hold of my arm! and then to hear an English voice as -if it were coming from the skies, ‘Let go that girl!’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“How did the fellow understand, I wonder?” the Vice-Consul said.</p> - -<p>“If I had not been so frightened I should have laughed. They did not -understand a bit! It might just as well have been Greek; but if it had -been Greek they would have understood,” cried Rita, putting her hands -together with grateful enthusiasm. All this time Harry had never spoken -a word; indeed, there had been no opening for him to speak.</p> - -<p>“You must have thought me a big idiot to say anything at all,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh! I thought you—— I won’t tell you what, or papa will say something -disagreeable. It was so grand the English voice; and then their hands -dropped as if I had been fire.”</p> - -<p>“I should have broken every bone in their bodies,” cried Harry, with -unnecessary fervour, “if<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> I had known it was <i>you</i> they touched with -their filthy fingers!” He did not know why he made this violent speech, -which was far from elegant, and quite unsuitable to the refined and -still atmosphere in which he so unexpectedly found himself. As for Rita -she blushed a little, and laughed a little, in the soft green twilight, -finding it not unnatural that he should have been doubly indignant at -the idea that it was <i>she</i> who was in danger. She was accustomed to -believe that anything disagreeable was doubly offensive when it happened -to her, and that she was about the most important little person in the -world. But she was one of the rare people whom such a knowledge does not -spoil. It seemed to her quite simple—was not she her father’s only -child, and only pleasure in life? She had been aware of this fact ever -since she was born.</p> - -<p>“Hush, hush!” said the Vice-Consul; “we must have nothing more about -breaking bones: to knock down one fellow was quite enough. But I am very -much obliged to you, Oliver. I can’t make a stranger of you after this. -My little girl is all I have in the world, and whoever is good to her is -good to me. If you are going to stay in Leghorn, I hope you’ll let me be -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> some use to you; but I don’t suppose that’s very likely. Meantime, -Rita, don’t you think we had better go to lunch?”</p> - -<p>What welcome words these were to Harry! He was excited and pleased by -the adventure altogether; his head was a little turned by the enthusiasm -of gratitude with which he was received, and the atmosphere around this -young creature, who was a kind of mystic half revelation to him. He had -not yet made out her face quite distinctly, and yet he was admitted to -all the privileges of friendship: the strange sensation intoxicated him. -But yet when her father spoke of lunch, all that went out of his head. -Consider that he had eaten nothing but about half a yard of tasteless -bread that day! and it was one o’clock. But Harry was not without -manners; though the pangs of appetite made him faint, he got up politely -and made a pretence at taking leave. Needless to say that the -Vice-Consul was above taking advantage of his position, “No, no, no; we -are going to keep you to luncheon,” he said, with a <i>bonhomie</i> which was -irresistible. Harry thought him the most delightful person in the world, -only a little less delightful than the other unknown being who made him -feel tremu<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>lous and abashed, though so happy. The dining-room was -lighted from the shady side of the courtyard, and there was accordingly -light enough to see by. The meal was not a foreign breakfast, but an -English luncheon of a substantial kind, and it is safe to say that Harry -had never been so happy in his life as when he had taken off the first -fierce edge of appetite, and had begun to be able to enjoy the novelty -and yet the familiarity of this unexpected scene. Mr. Bonamy (which was -the name of the Vice-Consul) without laying aside the dignity as of a -benevolent prince which was so remarkable in him, showed all the -condescension of a thoroughly amiable potentate; and Rita was—— Rita -was something of which Harry had no previous conception. She was about -sixteen—no more. Her face was the face of a child, but lighted up by -two beautiful large eyes which she had got from her Italian mother. She -knew, or seemed to know, everything her father knew, and was used to be -talked to about all that happened. If it were not Joan putting in her -word occasionally in a long discussion when her interference was seldom -received but with either blame or contempt, Harry had never been -accustomed to women who took any<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> share in the conversation going on; -and to hear this child talk bewildered him. She had a slight girlish -figure, a small face almost without colour, the faint sweet flesh tints -of which were thrown up in the most delicate distinctness by the white -of her dress. She seemed all spirit, all life, a creature made of air -and sunshine rather than flesh and blood to Harry. And about himself -there was so much flesh and blood! He listened to the conversation -rather than joined in it, feeling himself an admiring audience rather -than a partaker in their talk. One thing only he felt moved to say, and -that was about his own appetite, which he feared they would think -preposterous. “I feel more like a wolf than a man,” he said. “I hope you -won’t think I’m always like this. I never was abroad before, and I don’t -know the ways. And I had no breakfast but some of their queer bread. -This bread is delightful,” Harry said, with enthusiasm. The father and -the daughter were delighted with him, appetite and all.</p> - -<p>“I am so glad you never were abroad before,” said Rita; “now one sees -exactly what England is like. Oh, yes, papa, you need not laugh. I see -the English green, and the trees waving, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> the winds blowing, all in -Mr. Oliver’s face. And there is a little sound of the sea, and a shadow -of hills—not big mountains, but nice, kind hills with sheep-bells -tinkling——”</p> - -<p>“We have not many sheep-bells, Miss Bonamy, in my country,” said Harry; -“the hills are more grey than green, and there is a great deal of fog in -the winter, and east wind, and rain——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t tell me about the bad things, tell me about what is -pleasant,” said Rita. “The east wind is not so bad as the scirocco, and -the rain is delightful. I know all about that. As for the fog, the -painters say it is more picturesque than anything. They say there is -always a soft delicious sort of haze, and you never see things sharp cut -out against the sky as they look here.”</p> - -<p>“Have you never been in England?” Harry said, with a little surprise; -and then he saw that a shade, a sort of cloud, come over the lively -table, and the two animated faces. Rita shook her head, and then began -to talk quickly to him about the neighbourhood, and all he would have to -see. Harry had protested to his humble friends that he wanted to see -nothing but the shipping, but he did not repeat this sentiment here. He -learned in a moment that to be fond of pictures was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> necessity, and -that there were certain things which every Englishman in Italy had come -expressly to worship. Rita’s opinion “of course” convinced him in a -moment. He never made the slightest stand against it. Henceforward he -knew what was expected of him. When she went out of the room waving her -fingers to him in sign of goodbye, Harry suddenly became quite grave, -and felt all at once as if the light had gone out of the sky. And there -was more than sentiment in this feeling; for now he found himself face -to face with the Vice-Consul, and it was very evident that, so much -having passed between them, something more would now have to be said. -Mr. Bonamy offered the young man a cigar, and, lighting his own, leant -back in his chair, and evidently awaited some further disclosures of his -mind and purpose.</p> - -<p>“You are thinking of staying in Leghorn,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I am thinking,” said Harry, feeling his colour rise, “of trying to get -employment, if I can; a situation of some kind.”</p> - -<p>“Employment!” said the Vice-Consul. It was impossible to deny that he -was disappointed. His voice had an accent which there was no mis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>taking. -Harry had not much refinement or education, but he had an air which -would have been perfectly consistent with the rank of a young squire, an -English country gentleman of simple mind, and no great amount of -culture, travelling for his pleasure, and perhaps with some vague idea -of improvement. Mr. Bonamy, who had received him so cordially, and who -had been pleased to be under an obligation to a young fellow of -attractive appearance and pleasant manners, was more cast down by this -intimation than might have been thought possible. Not a young squire: -nobody in particular: a penniless youth seeking employment. Such -visitors were not rare, but they seldom penetrated into the -carefully-guarded interior of the Vice-Consul’s house.</p> - -<p>Harry felt very much abashed. He was sensible of the downfall. How he -longed to produce the glories of the Joscelyns, and convince his hearer -that, if he was humble now, his family had once sat with princes! -Perhaps Mr. Bonamy might not have been so impressed by these ancestors -as Harry thought; but as it was they looked at each other blankly, -mutually feeling that a great fall had taken place. Harry smiled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> in -that rigid way which is popularly called smiling at the wrong side of -the face.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, “employment. I don’t know that I am very good for -anything: but I have some little acquaintance with—business.”</p> - -<p>This was worse and worse. Had he been possessed of a knowledge of law -business, or military drill, or anything likely to be of no real use to -him, the situation might have improved. But business! book-keeping, and -that sort of thing! no doubt he was a mere clerk after all.</p> - -<p>“You have recommendations, I suppose, from your last employers,” Mr. -Bonamy said, coldly. “I shall be glad if I can be of any use, but——”</p> - -<p>“To tell the truth,” said Harry—he was seized with an outburst of -frankness, feeling a kind of desperation seize him at sight of this cold -withdrawal of the sudden friendship which had made him so happy for the -moment—“to tell the truth I have no recommendations. If anyone will be -kind to me they must take me at my own word. All I have got to say for -myself is that I have quarrelled with my family. I cannot enter into the -question now. I have done it, and that is all I can say; and here I am, -and I must get employment. I am not going to push myself into your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> -acquaintance, Sir. It was an accident, nothing more than an accident; -and probably you thought me a person of more importance——”</p> - -<p>“Importance or not has nothing to do with it,” said the Vice-Consul; and -again his countenance softened. A young man who has quarrelled with his -family is no doubt a person to be lectured and reproved, and brought -back to a sense of duty, but all the same he is quite different from a -commonplace clerk seeking a situation. Harry did not intend to throw any -halo of distinction over his own humble person, but he did it unawares. -Mr. Bonamy’s countenance gradually cleared. “My dear young fellow,” he -said, “I daresay you are impulsive and hot-headed, like so many other -young men. As being under obligations to you, I may allow myself to give -you good advice. No advantage ever springs from family quarrels. My -advice to you is, make it up.”</p> - -<p>“Not for anything in the world,” said Harry, hotly. “I have been -treated—I can’t say how I have been treated. I will neither make it up, -nor will I go near them, or have any communication with them, till I am -altogether independent of them, and have worked out a position for -myself!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You must not be so violent,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, let me -act the part of a real friend. Let me write.”</p> - -<p>“Never!” said Harry, getting up to his feet. “I am very sorry, Sir, to -have troubled you with my affairs.”</p> - -<p>“That is nonsense,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Sit down, sit down, and let us -talk it over. You have been hot-headed, I don’t doubt. What is it now? -tell me. Some foolish falling in love. You must want to marry somebody -they don’t approve.”</p> - -<p>Harry smiled in spite of himself. “I am no more in love than you are, -Sir,” he said.</p> - -<p>“That might be a dangerous affirmation,” said the Vice-Consul, shaking -his head, with a smile which was somewhat melancholy; “but I understand -what you mean. Then was it money? You have been foolish and got into -debt?”</p> - -<p>“It was a little about money; but not because I had got into debt—and -that was the least of it,” Harry said. “You must pardon me, Sir; but -indeed I cannot tell you: it is a complicated business; and I can’t -depart from what I have said. I will never go home, never make it up -till I have made my own fortune. But if you will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> believe me,” he said -earnestly, with a flush of hot colour, “the fault was not mine. I have -nothing to conceal on my side.”</p> - -<p>“Then why conceal it?” said the Vice-Consul. “I cannot act for you -unless I have full information; but if you will trust me with your -story——”</p> - -<p>“I would trust you sooner than anyone I know; but I have promised that I -will never say a word on the subject,” said Harry, with all the -obstinacy of all the Joscelyns in his face, “until—I am independent, as -I have said.” He rose up a second time, all flushed and excited. “I am -going to try my luck at Leghorn,” he said. “I am much obliged to you, -Sir, for your kindness. I have felt myself again since I have been here; -but now I will not trouble you any more.” He held out his hand. He was a -handsome young fellow, tall and strong, with the sunburnt countenance -and well-developed limbs, and curling, fair locks, which are everywhere -identified with a young Englishman. He was not at all like a mere clerk -in an office; he was like a son of the fields and woods, one of those -whose training has been of the kind most prized and appreciated by all -Englishmen—an open-air youth;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> a rider, rower, swimmer, -cricketer—brought up in that way which involves leisure and space, and -all the appliances of country-life. Mr. Bonamy saw all this in Harry’s -vigorous form and movements. He felt sure that he could not be a nobody. -And after all, except that of being a nobody, there is in youth no -unpardonable sin.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be in such a hurry. Sit down again, the office does not open for -another half-hour: and let me hear what there is to be done for you,” he -said.</p> - -<p>This was a question more embarrassing than the Vice-Consul supposed, for -after all there did not seem much that Harry could do. He confessed that -he had almost forgotten what he knew at school, and he had never learned -any modern languages, and could speak no tongue but his own. He had a -little experience in business, he said; but this was the only knowledge -he could lay claim to. The Vice-Counsel did not know what to make of -him; but as he had started with the distinct hypothesis that Harry was a -squire’s son, it was not very difficult to fit in the facts to his -foregone conclusion. Many a young gentleman forgot all his school -learning by the time he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> twenty. The difficult thing was that -knowledge of business which at first Harry had been strongly disposed to -put forward as the only faculty which he knew himself to be possessed -of. How had he acquired that? Mr. Bonamy ended by deciding that he must -have quarrelled with his family some time before, and that his -acquaintance with business had been the fruit of some attempt made in -England to maintain himself before he came here. Thus, without any -intention on Harry’s part, he managed to deceive his first influential -friend. He neither meant to do it, nor was he aware he had done it; but -still this was how things fell out. The conclusion of the interview was -that Mr. Bonamy engaged Harry to come back to him next day, when he -would have thought the whole matter over, and know what to say. They -parted with great friendship and cordiality, Mr. Bonamy having entirely -come round again to his own theory in respect to the young man who had -been so serviceable to his daughter. Everything seemed to prove this, -Harry’s very ignorance among the rest. “In these days every poor lad is -more or less educated; a gentleman’s son, who has something else to look -to than competitive examination, he is the only one that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> escapes that -sort of thing,” the Vice-Consul wisely said. Harry, on his part, went -off to his hotel with greatly exhilarated feelings. He had done nothing, -he said to himself, but make friends since ever he came to Leghorn. To -be sure in the light of the Vice-Consul’s friendship he felt that Paolo -was (as he had always felt) somewhat beneath his pretensions. But still -the poor fellow had been very kind. As he came out by the private door -of the Consul’s house, he saw Paolo at a little distance waiting till -the public door of the Consulate should be open. He saw Harry and rushed -at him, beckoning violently.</p> - -<p>“Komm ’ere, komm ’ere; this is the place,” he said. “Komm along, I will -introduce you, I will respond for you; now is the time to find the -Vice-Consul amiable. He is always amiable when he has well breakfasted.” -He seized Harry by the arm, and tried to drag him back to the Consulate -with an anxious desire to serve his friend which merited a better -return. Harry shook himself free of the little man with good-natured -impatience.</p> - -<p>“I’ve just come from the Vice-Consul,” he said with dignity, “we’re the -best of friends. I’ve been able to be of use to him, and he is going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> -be of use to me. Many thanks to you, Paolo, all the same; but I’ve been -lunching there, and—and I’ve done my business. To-morrow I am to go -again,” Harry said, unconsciously holding his head high. Paolo gazed at -him with eyes and mouth that were like round O’s of wonder. He was much -crestfallen in his honest endeavours to be of service. But he soon -recovered his spirits.</p> - -<p>“Bravo!” he said three times over, each time more satisfied than the -other. Then he rose to a “Bravissimo,” with a smile that lighted up his -olive face. “It would have made me pleasure to be of use to you, Ser -Isaack mio. I would have responded, I would have taken it all upon -me—what you call caution. But you are a true English, like the -Vice-Consul himself, and it is just that you should understand each -other. I am not disappointed—I am happy, very much happy that you have -not any need of me,” little Paolo said, smiling, but with tears in his -eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /><br /> -<small>PAOLO.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">P</span>AOLO came back from his labours in the evening, very curious to know -all about Harry’s interview with the Consul, and the origin and the -result of the acquaintance between them. But Harry was prudent. He was -prudent without any motive, from personal pride, rather than from any -consideration for the credit of Miss Bonamy, which he did not think to -be in the least involved. The women with whom Harry was acquainted were -not of a kind who would have been afraid to go anywhere in the evening, -and it did not occur to him that the reputation, even of a girl, in -Italy would be jeopardized by such an innocent benevolence as that of -going to visit a sick neighbour at night. Therefore it was simply<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> pride -and English reserve, not any notion of prudence on Rita’s account, that -kept him silent on the subject. Paolo had a very different conception of -the affair. He was very anxious to find out what had been the immediate -effect upon Harry’s mind of the visit to the Consul’s house.</p> - -<p>“There is a—young ladi there,” he said, watching Harry’s face. “You see -perhaps, yes? a young ladi, the daughter of the Signor.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I saw Miss Bonamy,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>“And you nevare—see her before?” This Paolo asked with a gleam of -mischief in his dark eyes, and the air of a man who knew a great deal -more than he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, I have met her before,” said Harry lightly. “They were quite -old friends. I did not in the least expect to meet people so like old -friends here.”</p> - -<p>Paolo was bewildered by this speech, and did not know what to think.</p> - -<p>“Ah,” he said in a tone of disappointment. “You know them in your -country? what you call at ’ome? But,” he added with a little triumph, -“there you could not meet Signorina Rita, because she is never to go to -England; her mother die in England, her mother was the daughter of an -English<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> and Italian, like me for example; but she die in England when -she go, all young, when the Signorina was a bébé. The Signor Vice-Consul -was mad—Si! mad, there is no other word. It was a long time that it was -thought he die too—but no, he live, he go on living; but the Signorina -Rita never go to England, that is finished, that is fixed, nothing will -change it. It could not be that you meet her there.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know Miss Bonamy very well,” said Harry with a little offence, -“that you call her by her Christian name?”</p> - -<p>“I say Signorina Rita, it is our custom. If she were an old, I should -say Sora Rita; and the Vice-Consul he is Ser Giovanni, that is our -custom. Ser Isaack you, Ser Paolo me—but not for you, amico. When you -say Paul-o, that pleases me,” and Paolo laughed, showing his teeth, -which were very white and even. He added, after a moment, with a sudden -moistening of his brilliant eyes, “But what displeases me, after -becoming amici, as we are, is not to be able to serve you. I picture to -myself that I will do something; not moche, but yet something. I will -stand up and say, ‘I take him upon myself. He is without papers, but I -take him upon myself—me.’ Now<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> I am without use. It is no matter to you -to have Paolo Thomp-sone for your friend. The Vice-Consul is moche -bettare—he is grand personage; he has power, not only the heart, like -me.”</p> - -<p>“But, Paul-o,” said Harry, anxious to comfort him, and half touched, -half amused by his distress, “but for you I should never have gone near -the Vice-Consul: you put it into my head. But for you,” he added, with a -laugh, putting his hand lightly on Paolo’s shoulder, “I think I should -have turned tail altogether, and wandered off I don’t know where.”</p> - -<p>Paolo’s face shone with delight. He would have rushed into Harry’s arms -had that been practicable, and thrown himself upon his breast. But -Harry, laughing, kept his friend at arm’s length. To have kissed, or to -have suffered himself to be kissed by, any man, seemed to him the height -of ridicule. Paolo, baffled in this impulse, sat down and looked at him -with radiant eyes. “Now I know that we are amici,” he said. “Aspetto! -There is still a way I can serve you. I well teach you to speak the -Italian. You shall know it so well that they shall say, Ecco un -Italiano. Me, I have been to school in Sienna. I know the real -Toscano—the best Italian. We<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> shall begin this moment. That pleases to -you, Ser Isaack?” asked Paolo, tenderly, looking with humble and -deprecating eagerness into his face.</p> - -<p>“You must learn to speak English better,” Harry said, with some -condescension. “I told you before you must not not say an English, but -an Englishman, and to say an old is nonsense—it should be an old woman, -or an old man, whichever it may be.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” cried Paolo, “that is alright, that is understood. You -correct me when I say what is not just, and I teach you.”</p> - -<p>“Come out now for a walk,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>Paolo jumped up alert and delighted. It is true that it glanced across -the mind of the young Englishman that perhaps it was beneath the dignity -of a man who was a friend of the Vice-Consul’s, and thus, as it were, a -member of the best society, to walk about with Paolo hanging on to his -arm. But, though Harry was full of youthful conceits and the prejudices -of an ignorant Englishman, he yet had a heart in his capacious bosom, -and Paolo’s devotion had been so great as to touch that heart. He said -to himself, with a little effusion, that he never would turn his back -upon a little fellow who had been so anxious to help him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> It might be -that it was presumption on the part of the little fellow to think -himself capable of serving Harry, but still it was well meant, and his -undisguised admiration showed a most just and well-judging spirit. -Nothing, he said to himself, would induce him to turn his back upon -Paolo, his first friend. Antonio had given his whole attention to the -two during the course of dinner. He had loitered behind them when he was -not actively pressing upon them all the choicest morsels, to the despair -of various less interesting guests who could not catch his eye, and who -shouted and stamped in vain. He kept shifting from one foot to another -in the restlessness of pure pleasure as he caught now and then a word of -the conversation between them, and rubbed his hands with delight in the -consciousness of being able to understand it. Now and then he would -punch a fat Italian, with whom he was familiar, in the shoulder, and -call his attention. “Ecco il giovane Inglese,” he would say, though -Harry was doing nothing more important than eating his dinner. Antonio -had got his five francs for a very short day, for naturally the time -passed in the Consul’s had given him no trouble except that of waiting, -and what was still more to the purpose than the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> five francs was the -importance of having such a witness to his power of English-speaking as -this new guest, who could arrange nothing for himself without his -(Antonio’s) help. He disregarded even the call of the chief butler, so -absorbed was he in his favourite stranger.</p> - -<p>“Do you wish the young Inglese to starve,” he asked, indignantly, in his -native language, “when you know the Inglesi are the best customers the -padrone has, and always send millions more? Do you propose to yourself -that he should have nothing to eat, this young one that is no doubt made -of gold; and how can he have anything to eat if I am not there to serve -him?”</p> - -<p>Thus he kept behind Harry’s chair with a countenance full of delighted -interest. Now and then he would put in a word. “Ze signori will do much -better to go to ze opera to-night,” he said. “Zey will hear La Catalina, -who is ze first in Italy. It is ze ‘Barbiere,’ Ser Paolo, which gives -itself to-night.”</p> - -<p>Paolo looked up appealingly into his friend’s face, but Harry brushed -the suggestion away with a true British argument. “Oh, for heaven’s -sake,” he cried, “don’t let us go and box ourselves up in a hot theatre -on such a night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Paolo sighed, but obeyed. He repeated the sentiment in a superior tone -to Antonio, who was anxiously serving them with Cigare Scelte, arranged -in different kinds upon a wooden tray. “A hot theatre, Antonio mio! one -does not go there in a so warm evening. That goes well with the winter, -when it is cold; but in summer, we young have need of moche air and the -great world to keep us comfort-able. When you know more of real English -you will learn what they love.”</p> - -<p>Antonio accepted this decision of his superiors with much respect, and -laid it up in his memory, to be produced on his own account when it -might accord with his pretensions as an Anglomane and person of high -sentiment to produce it. But in the meantime he could not but launch a -little criticism to the others who overheard this dignified rebuke. -“That little Paolino,” he said, as they went out, “to give himself the -air of a rich Inglese! He is neither one thing nor another. He is no -more than an abozzo—a sketch of an Inglese,” Antonio cried. He had been -in an artist’s studio in his day. “Me, I understand them, al fondo,” he -added, beating his breast.</p> - -<p>Little Paolo had no notion that he was being called an abozzo. He -sallied forth, lighting his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> cigar, thrusting his arm through Harry’s -with the greatest delight and pride.</p> - -<p>Next day, at the hour appointed, Harry presented himself at the -Vice-Consul’s office, and was received with the same cordiality. Mr. -Bonamy had “made inquiries,” but, as nobody in Leghorn knew anything -about Harry, there was not much information to be procured. Neither did -the captain of the steamer in which he had arrived know anything about -him except that he was a passenger in the second cabin; although he -looked quite superior to the second cabin. “I set him down as somebody’s -son in disgrace with his family,” the captain said. This chimed in -sufficiently well with Mr. Bonamy’s observations. He met Harry after the -first consultation with a grave face. “You know I know nothing about -you, Mr. Oliver,” he said, “except—and that is not much—what you have -chosen to tell me.”</p> - -<p>“That is quite true, Sir,” said Harry, growing serious too, and feeling -his heart sink, “and I have no right to expect you to take my word even -for that.”</p> - -<p>“Therefore,” said the Vice-Consul, “(for you should never interrupt a -man in the middle of a sentence), I have the more claim upon you to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> -treat me in an honourable way. If you had come with all your papers, as -they say in this country, I should not have had the same right to put -you on parole, as it were. If you know no reason why I shouldn’t take -you into my office, and trust you with the Queen’s affairs, I mean to do -so. But if there is anything that would make you a discredit to Her -Majesty’s Service——”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing, Sir,” said Harry, standing up. His face flushed, his -nostril dilated, an impulse of almost fierce self-justification came -upon him; but fortunately for him he was not used to defending himself, -and he could not say another word.</p> - -<p>“Then that is enough,” said the Vice-Consul. “I take you on your own -parole.”</p> - -<p>They were both silent for a minute or two after. It was not like a -common engagement. Harry’s heart was in his throat. What with surprise -at this extraordinary good fortune, and the emotion called forth by a -confidence in him which he could not help feeling to be as -extraordinary, he was quite beyond his own control. If he had said -anything he would have “made a fool of himself,” so he said nothing, but -sat still, almost disposed, like Paolo, to be tearful, which was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> -most dreadful catastrophe he could think of. The good Vice-Consul was a -little affected too.</p> - -<p>“But I don’t know a word of the language,” at last Harry said.</p> - -<p>“We have more to do with Englishmen than Italians,” said Mr. Bonamy. -“Perhaps the fellow whom you knocked down ‘quietly,’ as you told me, may -come and make his complaint to you. Your knocking a man down quietly was -the thing that tickled me. I wonder what was his opinion of it. You must -learn the language of course, and some other things quite as important. -You must find out all about the harbour by-laws and dues, and all that -affects the shipping. These are things we have a great deal to do with. -You must master them, that is the most important thing; and when you -have been here for a little while you will find out other points. Do you -know anyone from whom you can get lessons? But I suppose, as a matter of -fact, you don’t know anyone here.”</p> - -<p>Here Harry, finding his power of speech, told him of Paolo, with that -half laugh of commentary which implies a certain slight of the friend to -whom he had so much reason to be grateful. He felt that it was mean, but -he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> could not help it. How could he help implying a laugh at the droll -little person who held by him so faithfully, yet was so entirely out of -Harry’s way? However, the Vice-Consul took Paolo quite seriously. He -nodded his head with approval. “Nobody better—nobody better,” he said. -“I see you laugh at him; but he is as sound as a bell, that little -fellow, and always rings true. That he is not quite your equal,” Mr. -Bonamy added, “does not matter a bit in the circumstances. I am glad -that you have chanced so fortunately. To get hold by accident of such a -genuine person as Paolo is quite a piece of luck. I rather think you -must be a lucky person,” he added, with a laugh.</p> - -<p>“Since I came to Leghorn,” said Harry, fervently, “nothing could be more -true than that.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think you must be lucky,” said the Vice-Consul, “to hit upon a -perfectly honest person as your first acquaintance, then making haste to -get yourself into a row to have so good an excuse for it as my Rita, and -then——”</p> - -<p>“And then,” said Harry, “to meet with such astonishing, such -unlooked-for kindness, to fall on my feet in such a wonderful way.”</p> - -<p>“Well, perhaps,” said Mr. Bonamy, not dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>pleased, “we may say that was -luck too; and one thing, Oliver,” he added quickly, “it will be so much -the better for you that employment in Her Majesty’s Service is a -disgrace to nobody; mind what I say. Of course, in the nature of events, -you and your family will not be at daggers drawn for ever; and when you -condescend to go back, or they find you out, and come to look for -you——”</p> - -<p>“Neither, neither will happen,” cried Harry, shaking his head.</p> - -<p>“We shall see; but if that day comes, there is nothing for them to find -fault with. A Consulate is not like a merchant’s office; anybody may -serve Her Majesty. None of us, I hope, are too good for that.”</p> - -<p>“I assure you, Sir——” Harry cried, hastily.</p> - -<p>“No, no, you need not assure me. I don’t want to know anything; unless, -indeed, your heart should be opened to tell me <i>everything</i>, which I -should really be glad of. Well,” he said, “come to-morrow morning and -begin. Your friend, Paolo, will tell you about the hours: and I hope, -Oliver, we shall always remain the best of friends,” the Vice-Consul -added, rising and holding out his hand. “I hope nothing will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> happen to -make me entertain a less opinion of you than I do now; that’s -understood. You shall have a card for Rita’s evening at-home, and I hope -you’ll come and see us occasionally in a friendly way. Let us say next -Sunday, perhaps? Sunday’s a dreary day for a young man by himself. Come -after church, and stay for the after noon; for the present, goodbye.”</p> - -<p>Harry took his hat and made his best bow. He was really quite tremulous -with excitement, surprise, and pleasure. To be so speedily and so easily -established was more good fortune than he could realize. When he was at -the door Mr. Bonamy called him back.</p> - -<p>“Oliver!” he cried, “one moment; I would not knock any more men down if -I were you; however quietly it is done, it is a little risky, and Her -Majesty’s Service, you know——”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t fear, Sir; that’s what Paul-o has been preaching to me all -the time,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>Upon which the Vice-Consul laughed benignly.</p> - -<p>“Paul-o, as you call him, is as good an adviser as you could have,” he -said.</p> - -<p>“What should I call him but Paul-o?” Harry said to himself; and he went -off with his head<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> in the air. Lucky! indeed he had been lucky; only the -third day since his arrival and he had a situation and a sort of a home -and friends; to make up to him for all the evil that had happened to him -before, providence was taking special care of him now. Somehow this made -Harry think of his mother, of whom, hitherto, his thoughts had been -scarcely more kind than towards the others concerned; a little moisture -crept unawares to his eyes. “She’ll have been praying,” he said to -himself; and suddenly he seemed to see her, as he had seen her so often, -wringing her thin worn hands, her lips trembling with words that were -inaudible. He thought—it would be hard to trace the exact connection of -ideas, but there was one—that he would go in to the first church in -which there seemed to be service going on, on his way back to the inn. -It would not have occurred to him to go into a church where there was no -service, but when he heard the tinkle of a bell, and saw one or two -people creeping up and down the broad stone steps, he went in, though -with a little opposition in his mind, as well as a certain craving for -sympathy and utterance. But when he went in, Harry saw no signs of -public worship. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> tinkle of the bell was coming from an altar in a -side chapel, where a great many candles were burning. In the body of the -church some people were seated quietly, others kneeling on the low -rush-bottomed chairs. He stood and gazed for a little with mingled -feelings, with a great opposition in his mind to the Papist ritual and -ceremonies (of which he saw nothing, and which, to tell the truth, he -had never seen, and knew nothing whatever about); and disapproval of the -people who were in the church for, as he thought, no purpose—mingled -with a curious sense of the grateful calm and quietness and seclusion of -the place, the serene coolness and breadth of its lofty roofs and silent -space. This stole upon him, he could not tell how. He would not have -knelt down, as the few people about were doing, to save his life: it -would have seemed to him like the famous bowing down in the house of -Rimmon, for the North was very Protestant in those days, and sympathy -with Rome was very rare. He would not even say a distinct prayer in his -heart, which would have seemed like yielding to temptation. But, as he -stood, there rose in him an unwilling devotion, and the thanks that had -been in his mind were perhaps not the less given that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> they were -arbitrarily refused utterance. For Harry’s prejudices were a part of his -training, not anything that originated in himself. When he went away the -moisture came again into the corners of his eyes. His mother was as -Protestant, more Protestant, than himself. She would have thought it -wrong to go into “a Catholic chapel.” She would scarcely have been able -to believe in the existence of a country not given over to all evil, in -which a Popish place of worship was not a Catholic chapel, but an -established church. Oh, the poor people! what benighted darkness they -must be in! she would have said, in her ignorance. But somehow, Harry -could not have told how, he felt as if he had approached his mother in -that foreign place. The silent church, with the silent people in it -praying, made him think of her as he had seen her, with her lips moving -and her hands clasped together. Often again he stole in for a moment to -renew that sentiment, which was so soft and pathetic. He held out -against his mother all the time obstinately, though he knew he was -condemning her to great suffering—and he entirely disapproved of the -church; but for all that the two had some subtle resemblance, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> union -of two things he was hostile to, which went to his heart.</p> - -<p>Paolo came to dinner in great triumph. He had placed a flower in his -button-hole and put on a brilliant new tie in honour of the great event, -and fairly threw himself upon his amico and kissed him with enthusiasm -before Harry could get out of this extremely embarrassing position. -Never young girl blushed more uncomfortably than the young man did as he -drew himself out of his enthusiastic friend’s embrace.</p> - -<p>“What have I done to you that you make no response?” Paolo said, almost -weeping over this repulse.</p> - -<p>“Hold your tongue, for goodness’ sake! Men don’t kiss each other in -England. Whatever you do, don’t be ridiculous,” Harry cried.</p> - -<p>Poor little Paolo was wounded to the heart.</p> - -<p>“I am an English myself,” he said. “Yes, yes, an English<i>man</i>, if you -will; I have not the courage to remember. I am a true English-man; but -it is cruel all the same. Should I then take no notice? when it is the -wish most dear of my heart that will be fulfilled? Always I have said to -myself—if the Santissima Virgin would send a real English-man, not one -that is what you call<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> ’alf-and-’alf, like me. And when it is done, and -my amico whom I have chosen turns out to be he whom I have so much -desired, am not I to show a little that I am glad? I am ’appy that I am -an Italian,” said Paolo, with indignation, “if it is so.”</p> - -<p>And there was a little suspension of intercourse between them. But this -did not last; Paolo was too good-humoured and too tender-hearted to -stand out; he begged his friend’s pardon in less than five minutes. -Harry, whose mind moved more slowly, had not had time to realize that he -had been unkind when this reversal of the position took place. Paolo did -all but weep in his penitence.</p> - -<p>“I am good-for-nothing,” he said, “I am without sentiment, I have no -delicacy nor education. Who can say why you were so magnanimous as to -choose me, me! for your amico? and when you show the true dignity of an -English, me I am so without good-breeding, so common, so devoid of -sentiment, that I become angry! but if you will only forgive me, forgive -me this once——!”</p> - -<p>“It is I who am a brute,” said Harry, penitent in his turn. But Paolo -protested with tears in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> his eyes, and would have thrown himself at his -friend’s feet, or on his neck again, in the excitement of the -reconciliation. And though he was usually very thrifty, calculating -every centissimo, he ordered a bottle of <i>champagne frappé</i> to celebrate -the day. Nothing would prevail upon him to countermand this order.</p> - -<p>“It is a festa,” cried the little man, “and it is a reparation: and we -will drink to our eternal friendship.” Paolo did not know that he was -guilty of plagiarism; he was heroically in earnest, and drank his wine, -which Antonio brought with great pride and many grins, triumphantly in -its pail, setting it on the table before them, and watching its -consumption with the most amiable interest. “And here is for a -bicchierino,” Paolo said, bestowing, a small coin upon Antonio with much -grandeur, “drink thou also the health of Ser Isaack, who is my amico,” -and he held out his foaming glass to touch that of his friend.</p> - -<p>Paolo’s head was turned altogether by these unusual potations; and -Harry’s first office was to see his friend safe home and deliver him -from all the dangers of the streets, on this too triumphant night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /><br /> -<small>THE OFFICE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>ARRY entered upon his work next day, and was in a few hours so entirely -bewildered by the novel character of the questions addressed to him, and -the information he was supposed to possess, that he went to the -Vice-Consul in the evening in dismay. “I don’t know a thing,” he said; -“I never knew before what an ignorant beast I was. It would only be -taking advantage of you if I were to stay.”</p> - -<p>This hasty alarm and anxious honesty of purpose made Mr. Bonamy more and -more certain that he had judged rightly. “Don’t give in in such a -hurry,” he said, “you can’t be expected to know things of that sort -without learning. They are not part of a gentleman’s education. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> -must get your friend Paolo to take you in hand. He is a perfect mine of -information. I have often to refer to him myself. Though he is not in a -very high position, he knows more about these special matters than all -the rest of us put together.”</p> - -<p>And thus balm was diffused over Harry’s sore spirit. But he could not -help asking himself why the inequalities and injustices of this world -should be so marked in respect to Paolo. Why should he not be in a very -high position so far as the Vice-Consul’s office was concerned? He, -Harry, who was an ignoramus and knew nothing, was to have higher pay and -far more consideration than the other, who was a mine of knowledge. It -was true that Harry’s personal sense of superiority to Paolo was noways -weakened—but yet he felt the injustice. He had not been used to enter -into such questions, yet he could not but see that to bolster up the -ignorance of a well-looking Englishman, by the knowledge of a little -oddity of an Italian was somewhat hard so far as the Italian was -concerned. It was, accordingly, with a deprecating tone that he spoke to -Paolo at dinner. It even moved him to a little insincerity. What he had -said to the Vice-Consul in all good<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> faith, and much dismay, he repeated -to Paolo, not meaning it at all. “I don’t know a thing,” he said, “not -one question could I answer. I never knew I was so ignorant. It is very -nice to be settled and have Mr. Bonamy for my chief, and you, Paolo, to -help me through: but a fellow must be honest—and when the beggars come -and ask me things, I can’t go on pretending to know.”</p> - -<p>“You shall not pretend to know, Isaack mio,” cried Paolo, with a beaming -countenance. “Now is just come the moment which I was looking for, which -show that it is good to have a friend. How much does it matter whether -it is you that have it or I that have it? Listen then to me. You think -Paolo Thomp-sone a little nobody, and it is true; but listen—listen to -me. It is not to talk big or to brag that is necessary. <i>I</i> know.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure of that, Paolo,” said Harry, languidly, and with the look of -dejection which was half acting, though he did not intend it. “The -Vice-Consul said so. He told me you were a mine of knowledge. But why -should I pick your brains? Why should I mount up upon you and stand upon -your shoulders, and get all the credit of it? That is not just any more -than<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> the other. I oughtn’t to take everything from you.”</p> - -<p>Paolo could scarcely keep still upon his chair in his delight and -satisfaction. His face glowed and shone with happiness. “Are not you my -friend?” he cried; “all that which is to Paolo is to you, Ser Isaack. It -is my pride. We will begin to-night. It is better than to go out to the -Café to sit and sip Rosolio—to be idle like the others—moche bettare. -You shall come to my room, or I will go to yours—and then the books, -and to write the exercises, and to stoody. Yes, yes—I know. I have been -here all my life—I know moche, almost everything. Then we commence -to-night.”</p> - -<p>“But, Paolo, how am I to accept all that from you? A week ago you did -not know me, and now you are going to sacrifice all your spare time and -your pleasure to me; that is not just, as you say. You must let me at -least,” said Harry, faltering, and, with a glimmering insight which was -quite new to him, watching his friend’s countenance, “you must let me at -least—consider you as—my master, you know; and we must settle—now -don’t be angry—a price.”</p> - -<p>Paolo did not say a word; he turned his face<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> away from his friend and -pretended to go on eating his dinner. There was no need for words to -show how deeply wounded he was. He turned his shoulder to Harry, and -called the smiling Antonio to the other side.</p> - -<p>“Take it away! take it away!” he said in English, “it choke me!” and he -pushed his plate from him.</p> - -<p>“Oh! Signor Paolo! Pertanto é buonissimo; don’t cry, Ser Paolo,” cried -the anxious waiter. “These Inglesi, they are brutes; they have no -sentiment; they give pain without knowing it. Pertanto, you must not -weep.”</p> - -<p>“That imports me nothing,” said Paolo, feebly. “It is again an illusion, -my good Antonio; but I cannot weep much, for it is too deep.”</p> - -<p>“What are you two talking about? when you know I don’t understand your -confounded Italian!” cried Harry, at his wit’s end. “What’s the matter? -what have I done now? you will drive a poor beggar out of his senses! -Good Lord! you’re not a woman, that you should cry for what a fellow -says. I don’t know what you mean by your sentiment and all that; I want -to be honest, and not to take advantage of a good hearted duffer because -he is my friend.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Paolo turned round with the tears still in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“You call me duffere,” he said quickly; “beggare I understand, but -duffere I never heard.”</p> - -<p>“It means,” said Harry, drawing on his imagination, “the best-hearted, -silly kind fellow in the world, always going out of his way to help -somebody, holding out his hand to a suspicious beast the moment he lands -in a strange place, never giving him up though he behaves like a brute, -giving everything like an idiot, but flaring up if you want to give him -anything in return.”</p> - -<p>“Not that, not that,” said Paolo, laying his hand upon his friend’s arm. -“I give you my lofe, and I wait for your lofe in return. If there is a -thing you want I take it upon myself. Siamo amici! is there any more to -say? I know nothing; all is in that. If it is true that I am your amico, -then you are a beggare, you are a beast, you are all bad,” said Paolo, -with flashing eyes, “to be so base as to offer to pay me—money. Ah! -che! che! there is nothing too bad, nothing too dreadful to say. Inglese -brutale! false amico——!” Here he stopped all at once, and gazed -piteously into Harr<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>y’s face. “Forgive me, forgive me, my friend!” he -cried.</p> - -<p>This all happened at dinner, at the <i>table-d’hôte</i>, which fortunately -was not very full that day. There was nobody sitting opposite, which was -a great relief to Harry’s mind; but he could see from the end of the -table the cynical Englishman, who had never taken any notice of him, -giving an amused glance now and then at the group of friends—Paolo -shedding tears into his plate, Antonio, with a face full of sympathy, -tenderly removing it, essaying to console the sufferer. This was a -greater trial to Harry’s temper than even the sentiment of Paolo. He -shot an answering glance of defiance at his countryman, who had never so -much as given the help of a kind word to the stranger.</p> - -<p>“Let’s say no more about it, Paolo,” he said, “you and I are quite -different, you know. I daresay I am a brutal Englishman, but I can’t -help it. That’s our nature. We don’t think so much of a little thing as -you do, and we abhor making a fuss. Perhaps you don’t know what that -means?”</p> - -<p>“I will nevare make a fuss more. I will learn to be a duffere, and do as -you do,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>” said Paolo, in all the tenderness of reconciliation.</p> - -<p>Harry looked at him something as Joan looked at his mother. He had too -good a heart to despise his little friend, and he did not understand -him; but this sentiment was extremely inconvenient and very -troublesome—on that point there could be no doubt.</p> - -<p>However, later in the evening, Paolo, who had inherited all the Italian -thrift, gave his friend some very sensible advice. Instead of going to -the Café, they went to Paolo’s <i>appartamento</i>, which was on the highest -floor of a high house in one of the narrow streets. Though he called it -an <i>appartamento</i> it was a single room, with an odd little closet in the -shape of a kitchen, and offices attached to it. The room itself was -somewhat low in the roof, being so high up, but had three or four -windows, and a little balcony suspended over the street, into which it -made Harry dizzy to look down as into an Alpine ravine. The floor was of -tiles, the walls white, with a pattern in distemper, very graceful and -flowing, round the top and bottom. The bed was a very tiny and bare -article, put away in a corner. In another corner stood a table. A few<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> -chairs, and an old, very straight-backed settee, with two arms, in old -gilding and brocade, stood against the wall. There was a tall, brass -<i>lucerna</i>, the lamp common throughout Italy, with its little bundle of -snuffers and extinguisher and scissors to trim the wick, hanging from it -by a chain, and a few books on a shelf. Nothing could be more bare. -There was a small rug by the bedside, but no other covering for the bare -area of tiles which was the chief feature in the room. Paolo had a -little picture of the Madonna, a bad copy of that which is called the -Madonna del Granduca, and a basin for holy water over his bed, which was -covered with a red and blue cotton coverlet. Everything about showed the -same bareness and absence both of comfort and ornament. But Paolo -regarded his <i>appartamento</i> with eyes full of pleasure. He saw nothing -wanting in it. It housed him sufficiently of nights, and was cool and -pleasant in the summer mornings, when he rose, as most Italians do, in -the early daylight, to get through all the private work he might happen -to have. He looked round upon it with a gentle complaisance. Some old -prints, and one or two copies of famous pictures, hung on the walls. In -the best light was an old painting of a gloomy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> and uncertain aspect, -which Paolo believed to be a Margheritone. It might have been anything. -He was very proud of it. “Ecco!” he said, when they went in, “my old -master. He is a little dark, but when you study him you will find much -in him. He is of the <i>trecento</i>—very early—very early. The painter -have seen the blessed father, San Francesco; that indicates how old it -must be.”</p> - -<p>Harry did not make any reply to this. For his part he liked things -better for being new. The dark old picture had no charm for him at all, -and he thought the <i>appartamento</i> rather worse as being larger than his -own little room at the hotel, which had hitherto seemed to him the last -example of bareness and dreariness. “A horrid little hole,” more adapted -for a dog than a man.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you one other thing,” said Paolo, taking him affectionately -by the shoulders before they sat down by the table; “if you will make -economies, and do well, Isaack mio, you will not live always in the -hotel. Me I dine there; it is the best thing to do; but live all the -time—oh no! It is only for Englishmen to be so extravagant like that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“That is what I have been thinking,” said Harry, “if I could get some -nice rooms. You don’t understand about Englishmen. Dining every day at -an hotel is a thing nobody would think of in England. We have our dinner -at home, or, if the landlady is not a good cook, then perhaps—But for -my part I always preferred a beefsteak at home, even if it were not the -most perfect cookery in the world. Dining at an hotel is a thing no one -thinks of, except on a great occasion perhaps.”</p> - -<p>Paolo opened his eyes in surprise. “It is well,” he said, “you are more -prudent when you are in your own country. This is what you must do, -Isaack, amico. You will first find an <i>appartamento</i>. It is not always -that one is so fortunate as me. This is perfect—non é vero? It is all -one could want. A bed—ecco! a table, the sof-fa that has come from a -palazzo, even a little tabouret for the feet—everything. And then the -balcone! When it makes warm in the summer, in July and Agosto, it is, -oh! fresco, freschissimo so fresh and cool here! The first thing is an -<i>appartamento</i>. But in every way I am too fortunate. As soon I dress in -the morning, there is a caffè in face—you can see it if you look -down—where I can have my coffee in a moment. No waiting as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> when you go -to a distance, but at the moment. They are about to send us now the -coffee, amico, to clear our head. You will see how good it is. Then when -the time come for the other breakfast—what you call lunch—there is a -restaurant near the bureau. You have two very good dish, a dolce, and -dessert; and very little to pay. I will lead you to-morrow to that -place. And at last the dinner at the Leone. Figure to yourself so much -comfort all in one day! And you see the journals for nothing, and hear -what all the people say.”</p> - -<p>“Bless us all,” said Harry, “in that way you are never at home.”</p> - -<p>“At ’ome! I am at ’ome everywere,” the little Italian said; “all is -friends; whatever goes on, everyone makes part of it to me. And when all -is over you mount in your <i>appartamento</i>, you are tranquil, you light -your lamp, you fume slowly your cigar on the balcone, you go to bed. And -you make economies—great economies. Me even, that have not moche -appointment, I become a little rich, what you call at my ease. And you, -who will have moche more as me——”</p> - -<p>“Why should I? You are a great deal more use than I am,” Harry said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> - -<p>Paolo shook his head with a cheerful yet shrewd acceptance of the -position. “Si, I am of more use,” he said. “I am good for something; -you, caro, not good for moche yet. But look at you and look at me. That -expliques itself. That is the world’s way—what you call the world’s -way. Come; the first thing is an <i>appartamento</i>. You think, perhaps, it -is too high up here? But smell the good air,” cried Paolo; “that is of -itself refreshing—and the view! You will pay more scudi at the Leone in -a week than for a month here. Ecco! here is the coffee, and though it is -not yet quite dark, that amiable garzone, see, he has brought us a -lamp.”</p> - -<p>Then there entered, with a knock at the door, the man from the caffè -opposite, holding upon the points of three fingers a tray containing two -heavy cups of white porcelain and the small coffee-pot, flanked by a -plate of cakes, which Paolo’s hospitality had added in honour of his -friend. The waiter swung the lighted lamp in the other hand, holding it -by the handle at the top, and in this way had come up five flights of -stairs without spilling a drop of the coffee or jeopardizing the cups. -He put the lamp on the table with a “Felicissima notte, Signori,” -looking upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> two young men with looks as amiable as his wish. And, -indeed, the wish has more reason in it at the beginning of the evening -than at the end. Paolo was great as a host. He poured out his black -coffee as if it had been the richest of drinks, and pressed upon Harry -the odd little collection of cakes of every possible and impossible -flavour. Some of them were excellent, but Harry thought he despised -these innocent dainties. And he was not very fond of the black coffee: -how much better he would have liked an English cup of tea! As he sat -turning over the books which Paolo placed before him, and listened to -his friend’s explanations, gulping, with a great effort not to make a -wry face, occasional mouthfuls of coffee, there seemed to flit before -him a vision of his mother’s parlour—the fragrant tea, the rich fresh -cream, and herself, with that pale face which had not always seemed to -him so attractive as it did now. Once, to tell the truth, Harry had -thought his mother and sister heavy company, and in his heart had said -that nothing could be more dull than the long evening in the parlour at -home. Now that he was up here so near the sky in Paolo’s <i>appartamento</i>, -his ideas were different. The bare tiles underfoot, the wide, vacant -space,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> with the little bed in the corner, the dull old Margheritone -staring him in the face, with a pair of round eyes looking out from its -blackness—and all those knotty questions about the harbour dues to -occupy him, made as great a contrast as could be conceived to the old -curtains and carpets, and familiar walls, and cheerful fire, and the -grey sweep of landscape showing from the windows, stretching far into -the horizon. But he himself. Harry was very much the same, and in the -one place as in the other he was unsatisfied. He thought it had been his -surroundings that were to blame in the first instance, but now, after -the excitement of all this new beginning, and the novelty of his new -friends, and the new place, so unlike anything he had seen before, -Paolo’s <i>appartamento</i>, and the thought of settling down in another -such, brought him back, with a sort of mental gasp, to himself. Was that -all that was to come of it? It was scarcely worth while renouncing his -name and his family, and all his past, in order to settle down in a room -upon the fifth floor, among the chimneypots, at Leghorn. While he was -studying the dock regulations and harbour laws, his mind was busy about -this other perplexing question. An <i>appartemento</i>! Was he never, he -wondered,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> with an impatience that was almost comic in the humiliation -and depression it caused him, to have a sitting-room again? never to get -a meal save in public, in the grim <i>sala</i> of the Leone, or in a gaudy -restaurant with little marble tables; never even a cup of tea to himself -in his own place, as an Englishman loves to have it; never to have a -carpet under his feet, but cold tiles; and nothing in the world that -looked like home? He kept all this to himself, and tried hard to grasp -at the laws and regulations about the free port of Leghorn, and its -etiquettes and its dues; but his inner soul was crossed all the time by -impulses of ill-humour and disappointment which he could with difficulty -restrain. It is always difficult, after a period of agitation and -excitement, to settle down again and resume a steady routine; and Harry -could not think of this kind of settling with anything but annoyance. -The inn was not any better. His little sleeping-room there was not so -good as Paolo’s. In the <i>sala</i> there was always a sense of dinner -combined with cigars; and in the other parts of the establishment the -smell was of cigars impregnated with soup and divers odours of the -kitchen. And these were the only places where he, with his English -habits,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> had a chance of sitting down! He sighed for his little parlour, -with its Kidderminster carpet, and red moreen curtains, at Liverpool. It -was a palace to the <i>appartamento</i>, or anything that seemed possible -here.</p> - -<p>They sat so late over their books that Paolo did not as usual insist -upon accompanying Harry to the inn door. Paolo, for his part, had spent -a very happy evening. He was learned in those bye-laws which so -mystified Harry, and loved to enlarge upon them, and to impart -information in any shape was a grateful exercise to him. He liked to do -it, even when he was not—which he liked still better—doing a kindness -to a friend; and he was proud of all the possessions which he had -exhibited with such simple pleasure. It did not occur to him that his -home, which he was so happy in, or the simple routine of life which he -had set up for imitation, could fill any heart with dismay. He found -himself perfectly comfortable in it, why should not his amico do the -same? No doubt of the suitableness of this life to one as to another -crossed his simple mind. He crunched the biscuits which Harry disdained, -and drank the black coffee at which Harry made wry faces, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> was much -pleased with himself, and very happy to think that he was setting before -his friend the best way to walk in. He was scarcely so pleased with -himself however when he was over-persuaded to allow Harry to go back to -the hotel alone. “No, I will re-conduct you,” he had said at first; but -Harry laughed at the unnecessary ceremony. Paolo stood at the top of the -great black well of a staircase and held the lucerna to light his friend -downstairs, standing patiently with the heavy lamp dangling from his -hand till he had heard the door close at the foot; and then he rushed to -his balcony to watch lest Harry should turn the wrong way, ready to -scream out to him if he did so. Even when he had made sure that his -friend had turned to the right, and not to the left, Paolo still shook -his head. “I should have re-conducted him,” he said to himself. It was -the only drawback to the perfect blessedness of the night.</p> - -<p>It was a glorious night out of doors; the Italian moon was shining with -a warmth and glory unknown to northern skies. Harry tried to think the -moon was as fine in England, but he could not succeed in this; -everything else was a great deal better in England, but there was -something to be said for the climate here, one was forced to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> -admit—even though one might not admit anything more. Harry walked home -(as he called it by force of nature) with much subdued irritation and -despondency, consequent chiefly on the apparent impossibility of ever -having a sitting-room, or any place it would be pleasant to sit in -again. The inn, though he called it home, was not less obnoxious to him, -and he asked himself, good heavens, was it possible he should never—— -He had got as far as this when another picture suddenly rose up before -him, and in a moment changed all his thoughts. It was of a dim room, -cool and dark in the midst of the sunshine, with a whiteness of floating -curtains about the windows, and tables covered with books, and a white -figure in a corner, close upon the open dark space of a window closed by -green persianis, through which the air was blowing softly. Ah! he said, -drawing a long breath, there was a kind of paradise! That was very -different from the <i>appartamento</i>. It was dark in his memory, as it had -been when he had suddenly stepped into it out of the bright day with so -much surprise that he could but dimly recollect the appearance of the -place. He wondered how it would look when the persianis were open,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> when -the daylight got in, or at night when the lamps were lighted, when the -place was fully inhabited?</p> - -<p>Instinctively, without knowing what he was about, he turned into the -street which led to the Consulate. His heart gave a jump against his -breast when he saw that the persianis were all opened now, and that the -lights in the room made it partially visible from the street. Evidently -there was a party going on, and he felt a little pang of mortification -to think that he had not been asked. There was a sound of music and a -great deal of talk, talk that sounded exhilarating and delightful to -Harry, though he would have felt himself a fish out of water had he been -in the midst of the polyglot conversation that went on in the Consul’s -drawing-room. A white figure was seated near the window, faintly visible -within the white curtains. He wondered if it was <i>hers</i>? He screwed his -eyes together as if he had been short-sighted, to try to see a little -better, but this was what he could not make out. The sudden glimpse of -this little bright world from which he was shut out arrested Harry all -at once in his discontented thoughts. Here was something which would -make up for all deficiencies.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> He stood for a long time under the -windows, trying to hear the voices within, with no eavesdropping -intentions, but only to console himself by the recollection that he had -far more in common with the Vice-Consul’s house and his society than -with Paolo, though he was so good a friend. And then he stood opposite -and watched, seeing figures vaguely glide across the room, figures which -the white curtains, swaying softly in the air, kept indistinct. He could -not distinguish her, he allowed to himself; sometimes he thought he had -traced her, but only to find himself deceived. Some one in the -background was playing the piano softly, though nobody paid much -attention. Harry could not tear himself away from the window. That was -life, he thought to himself; a man who had that house to go home to need -never be dull; and then he remembered, with a glow of warm satisfaction -and pleasure, that on Sunday, no further off, he was to go there. He -turned after this with a resolute step, and went back to the hotel and -his dreary little room, where he sat on his bed, gazing at the two -little lights of the lucerna which had been given to him to light -himself upstairs, for all the house was dark and at rest before he got -back—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> thinking of that warm and cheerful scene. The lamp burned on -steadily, the only light in all the big hotel, and Harry sat and gazed -at it unwinking. Sunday afternoon! here was something to look forward -to. And <i>that</i> was a house which was worth calling a home, which was not -an <i>appartamento</i>. He thought life must have an altogether different -complexion there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE BONAMYS.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. BONAMY, the Vice-Consul, was a man who ought to have filled a very -different position. He ought to have been Consul-General and a person of -importance. He had been long in the service, and he had done good work, -and there was nothing against him. But there are some people who never -will “get on,” whatever may be the circumstances in their favour, just -as there are some whom all the adverse circumstances in the world will -not keep down. He was rash, as may have been seen by his reception of -Harry, and he was one of those men upon whom experience has no power, -who never learn—who having been deceived twenty times are just as ready -to believe and be imposed upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> twenty-first. His own goodness and -rectitude were such that he had kept his position fairly, and his talent -and fine faculties had not been without acknowledgment; but he had not -“got on.” There was another circumstance too which kept him in his -present position. His history had been briefly told by Paolo, and was -one which everybody knew. Eighteen years before he had married a -beautiful girl, the daughter of an English merchant in Leghorn and his -Italian wife. They had lived together for a year, and the little Rita -had been born, when young Bonamy took his wife “home” with great delight -and pride to exhibit her to his friends. She had scarcely touched -English soil when she fell ill; it was an ungenial season, and the -Italian girl was of a delicate constitution. The young husband, to whose -mind danger or death never presented themselves as possible, always rash -and venturesome, and ready to trust any gleam of sunshine, had been to -blame in exposing her to the severities of the spring changes and the -east winds, and the result was that he who had left Leghorn in the full -zenith of happiness, returned a miserable man, alone, leaving his -treasure in an English grave. For years after he had been so stunned<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> -with his grief that he was capable of little but the routine of -necessary work, and this period of deadly depression occurred just when -there might have been hopes of promotion for him. He did not want any -promotion. When he began to revive with the growth of his little girl, -and to find in her a substitute for the young mother whom he had -scarcely had time to know, it became a settled principle, almost a -superstition in his mind, that Rita must never leave her native soil; -she, at least, should never be exposed to those east winds and chilling -mists of England. It became a part of the training he gave her, a part -of the religion which everybody round was bound to. Whatever happened, -Rita was not to leave Italy; the risks her mother had succumbed to were -never to touch her. His living, his expectations, his life itself, were -nothing in comparison with this. He was not a man of a strong mind, as -may be easily perceived. There was but one thing which was utterly -precious to him, and that was naturally the first thing in his thoughts. -She throve here in the place where she had been born, just as her mother -had done before her; and if she were removed she would die. This made -him accept cheerfully the neglect of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> superiors; and he had made -himself many friends in the place he had inhabited so long. The whole -population knew him and his story, and sympathized, with the ready -warmth of the race. It was known even to the dock-labourers, to the -sailors in the port, that the Signorina Rita was never to go out of -Italy. The people were all profoundly interested in her in consequence. -It was a compliment to them, to their genial skies, and the health of -the town, and the excellence of everything Italian, not to say -Livornese, which went to their hearts; and the Vice-Consul and his -daughter found themselves very happy in the place, which he would have -left long ago had he been a more prosperous man.</p> - -<p>This consoled him greatly for not getting on; indeed, he had lost -ambition altogether, and given up all thought of advancement; he was -satisfied with his life such as it was. It was a pleasant life enough, -no press or hurry of business, no excessive responsibility, a friendly -society round him, a number of people looking up to him, a kind of -representative position which pleased his fancy. The shipping and the -sea-captains who occupied so much of his time were not perhaps quite so -delightful, but then there are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> some drawbacks in every lot. He had a -pleasant house, which he had gradually filled with furniture and -pictures such as might have made a connoisseur’s mouth water, and he had -plenty of leisure time to enjoy the society of his daughter and of his -friends. Unconsciously he had trained Rita to be his constant companion -and confidant. He had not intended so to do; there had been no desire in -him to withdraw her from younger companions, to keep her to himself; but -when an intelligent child is made the companion of a mature mind, which -is yet not too mature, but still capable of something of the -indiscretion of youth, there is a charm in the intercourse which nothing -else can equal. To a girl especially the attraction is great. Rita, -almost before she had given up dolls and baby-houses, had begun to see -the bigger world in glimpses through her father’s eyes. She began to be -aware of a universe full of people, full of humour and meaning, -appearing behind like an inexhaustible background. And if she did not -absolutely find out books by the same means, yet she made the discovery -of most things that were beautiful and important in them. His opinions, -his ideas represented a whole new heaven and new earth to her, before -which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> nursery and its childish joys faded away. She had begun to -know what he knew, to give an adoring echo to all his opinions, to -understand his occupations, when other children are still resisting -their first lessons, and resenting the interference of grown-up persons -with all their pleasures. The Vice-Consul confided all his difficulties, -when they arose, to her ears before she was twelve. She knew that the -“F.O.” was sometimes unreasonable, and that the shippers were -troublesome, before she had quite mastered English, which was not her -native tongue. Then there came a further development, when Rita no -longer echoed her father’s opinions, but had ideas of her own. This -followed so quickly upon the first, and added such a delightful variety -and animation to their intercourse, that the Vice-Consul fully believed -she had been a critic in her cradle, and that all her lively views upon -things in general had come to her direct by inspiration from above.</p> - -<p>She was seventeen now, though she looked younger. For five years she had -been everything that a grown-up companion can be, with something besides -that no grown-up companion ever was. They were everything to each other. -She reverenced him, and she laughed at him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> and patronized his ideas, -and thought him the first of created beings. Nothing but a child could -so mingle veneration and superiority, the freedom of an equal, the -keenness of a critic, the enthusiasm of adoring love. There was not a -thing he said which she could not pull to pieces, nor any of his actions -that were not subject to her comments. “I would not have done that, -papa, if I had been you,” she would say; and yet she was of opinion that -of all human creatures there was not one, on the whole, who came within -a hundred miles of Her Britannic Majesty’s Vice-Consul at Leghorn. This -was the result of Rita’s observations during the dozen years or so which -she had unconsciously spent in accumulating materials upon which to form -an opinion. And this was no small thing to say, for a clever child is -the most close of observers, and far less likely to be blinded by -partiality than any other human critic. As for the Vice-Consul, he had -no such foundation of commonsense and close observation to support his -certainty that such another as his Margherita had never been born to -man. He worshipped his child without any reason at all. If she had been -stupid, perhaps even if she had been unamiable, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> would have loved her -all the same; but he took it for a special instance of the goodness of -God towards him that she was delightful, and lovely, and sweet, and -clever—as well as that she was Rita, which last, however, was the chief -and unspeakable claim to his love.</p> - -<p>And the house in which these two lived together was a very happy house. -It is the privilege of girls to exercise this sweet reconciling power, -to make a father, or a mother, at peace with fate, reconciled to all the -troubles of the past. Perhaps it is inconsistent with the greater -self-assertion of young manhood to give so much thought, so much care to -the elder generation; certainly it is only here and there a -preternaturally excellent youth who ever fills such a place in the home -and the life of his parents as Rita filled to her father; and she was -not preternaturally good, but mischievous, and contradictory and -impetuous, as well as bright, and tender, and gentle. She never tried to -make her father happy, or thought of doing her duty to him, but only -loved him and lived with him in the most natural unconscious freedom of -word and thought. People may pass years under the same roof without ever -living with each other; but Rita poured<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> her young abundant life into -the stream of her father’s without thinking that any other channel was -possible. Everything that the one did was interesting to the other, -everything that happened contributed to their more perfect union. It had -never occurred as yet to either that this life of theirs might change or -undergo any transformation until the time should come when it would be -split in twain by death; and that was a contingency which, as applying -to herself (to think that her father might die had scarcely occurred to -her), seemed to Rita the least likely of all possibilities, while he, on -his part, if he ever took it into consideration, did it tranquilly, -thinking of his own death, as men in the midst of their lives, with good -health and no appearance of failing, do think of that event, as of -something too far off to trouble one’s-self about—inevitable, and -bringing its own atmosphere of resignation with it, but too shadowy and -distant to disturb anybody’s peace.</p> - -<p>It may be imagined that the event of Harry’s appearance was much -discussed between these two, who discussed everything. Rita had been -very grateful to Harry; she had exalted him into a hero. The description -she had given to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> her father, when she came rushing to his side on the -night of the occurrence, white and panting after her run home, had been -that of a demigod. She had described him as tall and straight as an -arrow, towering head and shoulders over the common creatures about. She -described the little voice in Italian which she had welcomed joyfully -enough, and which had begun to intercede with her assailants with a -troubled tone of politeness, and how it had been suddenly broken short -by the strenuous English of the deliverer. Rita, when she got over her -fright, cried and laughed together over the incident. She made it into a -dramatic scene, setting Paolo’s tremulous entreaties to music—and then -broke in upon the cadence with short sharp English monosyllables, “Let -go that girl!” She put the most flowery Italian into Paolo’s mouth, then -brought the other voice in, strong and brief in a masculine monotone. -She did nothing but repeat this little entertainment all the evening -after she had got over her fright, and when her father appeared with the -hero, looking somewhat sheepish, but very strong, very English, and more -good-looking than might have been hoped, Rita had been delighted. She -did not take, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> the accident romantically, or with any -high-flown interest in her deliverer. Discussing him afterwards, she -allowed that he did not look particularly brilliant.</p> - -<p>“But what of that?” she cried. “Heroes never need to be clever. It is a -great deal more than we deserve that he should be so good-looking. He is -very good-looking, handsome and heavy, just like a hero,” Rita said, -“and with a story! It is a great deal more than we had any right to -expect.” But the story itself did not make any such impression upon her -as it did upon her father. Rita was cynical for the first time, and did -not think much of the quarrel with the family. “There are so many -stories like that,” she said, bending her brows a little; “it saves a -great deal of explanation. But he is not clever enough to have invented -it. He would have blushed and stammered, and even you, papa, could have -found him out.”</p> - -<p>“Even I!” said Mr. Bonamy; “you speak as if my stock of intelligence was -the smallest you knew.”</p> - -<p>“Not that,” said Rita, laughing, “but you know you are very easily taken -in, papa; oh, yes, you cannot deny that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You make a great deal out of a very little,” said the Vice-Consul, -almost angry; for it was his weak point, and consequently he was very -susceptible to criticism. “Besides,” he said, in his usual tone, “when I -am taken in, as you say I am, it is by regular humbugs, professors of -the art. There was that fellow from Geneva, was there ever a better -get-up? he would have taken in old Pam himself.” This was his synonym -for astute and wary wisdom, as some people say Old Nick. “But Oliver has -not a bit of get-up about him. Whatever he is, he is genuine, the least -experienced could see as much.”</p> - -<p>“I told you,” said Rita, “he is not clever enough to have invented a -story; you always come round, papa, to what I say.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said the Vice-Consul, “I <i>am</i> a great fool about you, Rita, -everybody says that; no, he is not clever enough for a made-up story; -and he is so much in earnest about it that it must be true.”</p> - -<p>Rita did not reply. She had no desire to prove that her father was -wrong: and, besides, for once in a way her observations confirmed his. -She recalled to herself the big young fellow, with his ingenuous looks, -and that air of confused and deprecating surprise, as if he could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> -understand why they should make so much of him; a humbug (she concluded) -would have made the most of himself, and shown no surprise.</p> - -<p>“Of course he will not be able to keep it up,” Mr. Bonamy said, “they -will find him out. By the way, remember to keep a look out in the agony -column, they will appeal to him through that. I. O.; they are rather -queer initials.”</p> - -<p>“What does I. stand for?” Rita asked.</p> - -<p>“Isaac Oliver. It is an odd sort of name too for a young fellow like -that.”</p> - -<p>“Isaac! I don’t believe it can be his right name. He is no more like an -Isaac than I am. Isaac ought to be a sort of soft old man, very nice and -gentle, but a little silly, like Isaac in the Bible.”</p> - -<p>“My Rita, you are rather profane. Now it sounds to me like an old Jew, -which is to say an old humbug, up to everything, flattering and fawning, -and ready to sell his soul if he had one.”</p> - -<p>“It is you who are profane, papa; my Isaac, of course, was an old Jew; -they were all Jews, all those people in the Bible: but he was more like -you, a great deal, for it was he that was taken in. <i>That</i> cannot be his -right name.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Whose right name? you jump so from the Bible to yesterday that you are -confusing. I am obliged to you for the compliment about the patriarch. -And as for our young fellow, I think it very likely that Oliver is not -his name; but an <i>alias</i> is seldom carried so far as the Christian name; -he must be Isaac, I am afraid, though it is disenchanting.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Mr. Oliver,” Rita said. “There is not very much enchantment about -him anyhow. Yes, yes, he is just the right thing for a hero: but there -ought to be something behind, he ought to be a little clever, or witty, -or poetical, or something, before there can be any enchantment. Oh yes, -it was quite right to ask him for Sunday. He will be very -tranquillizing, quite Sunday fare.”</p> - -<p>“That was what I thought,” her father said. “You will try all your arts -upon him, you will turn him inside out. In half-an-hour you will find -out more than I would in a day.”</p> - -<p>“I shall not want to find out,” said Rita; “if he is so secret, why -should I try to penetrate his mystery? Mysteries, papa, I have often -told you, are seldom worth finding out.” And they both laughed at this -utterance of wisdom: but yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> there was a kind of understanding, at all -events on Rita’s side, that it was she who was the most prudent of the -two.</p> - -<p>Harry met them at church on Sunday morning. There were a great many -people at the English Church, and they had the usual look of -sectarianism and conventicalism which a small foreign community, holding -its select little “diet of worship” (as we say in Scotland) in its -separate church, in the midst of a large Catholic community, always has. -It is hard to understand why the mere fact of not being able to say our -prayers along with the mass of our fellow-creatures, should give -everywhere that look of narrow superiority, yet lurking sense of -disadvantage. Amid all the salutations at the church-doors, which showed -how the little community hung together, Harry was shy of penetrating the -mass, and held himself modestly apart, waiting in the background till -his friends disengaged themselves from the crowd. A stranger was more -remarked in that close circle than he would have been in towns more -frequented by tourists; and his appearance was so distinctively, almost -so ideally English, that he caught a great many eyes. A tall young -fellow, muscular and strong,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> with curling fair hair, a light moustache, -a ruddy complexion, and an English made coat, at once attracted the -attention of the merchants and officials who made up the congregation. -Who was he? When the Vice-Consul was seen to go up to him, and he walked -off by Rita’s side, their fellow-worshippers soon came to a distinct -conclusion on the subject. He was some young English swell who had -brought letters from influential persons at home, and whom Mr. Bonamy -would naturally make the most of. That was the best of an official -position, was the commentary of more than one looker-on—that the best -people were always sent to you—that whereas all the straggling tourists -who were nobody, were recommended by troublesome acquaintances to -ordinary residents in a town, the Consul had all the people of -distinction, and though he himself held no particular rank, made -acquaintance, and occasionally formed alliances, with very superior -people indeed. Many looks were in consequence cast after Harry, as very -happy, yet very humble, he walked off by Rita’s side. He thought that it -was he who had the advantage, while the spectators considered him a -distinguished visitor, and envied the Vice-Consul, whose position made -his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> house the natural head-quarters for such fine people. He walked -through the shady streets, saying very little, feeling himself quite -happy without speech, and it seemed to him like the repetition of a -dream when he came in again to the cool dining-room, and sat down once -more between the father and daughter. It was only a few days since he -had done that for the first time, coming in, like a man in a dream, to -find an unknown world opened to him. Now the world was no longer -unknown, he had got his place in it, he had the prospect before him of -knowing it better and better, it was his home, as it was that of the -others.</p> - -<p>With a strange feeling of security and continuance he took his place at -the table. He was never a great talker, and he allowed his entertainers -to talk over him, not being so quick to understand their allusions, and -all the shades of meaning in their rapid conversation, as he would have -wished. Sometimes Rita would turn to him with a pleasant word, bringing -him into the current, sometimes Mr. Bonamy would say something that made -an answer needful; but for the most part he was silent, taking his share -only with looks. He did the best he could for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> himself by this means, -for his face was bright, brighter perhaps than his intelligence, and he -had the pleasant art of being interested, whether he quite understood or -not. His look, which was half wistful, half understanding, with a little -eagerness in it, a desire to follow what was being said, and a naïve -comprehension that it was slightly above him, caught Rita’s attention in -spite of herself. So far as she was aware, this young woman was more -fond of intellectual people and their discourse than of anything else in -the world. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was her preference -for this kind of society, her disdain of trivial minds, and the common -chatter of the everyday world. And she had already expressed her opinion -about Harry, that he would do very well for a hero of the muscular kind, -but as for any special interest, a man required something more, a touch -of poetry or intellect, or at least, if nothing else, cleverness, to -recommend him to the attention. It happened, however, two or three times -over, that when Rita’s eyes were travelling the length of the table to -meet her father’s, with whom she was talking, they were caught by -Harry’s, who sat at the side. Harry had uttered nothing that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> was not -commonplace, and, indeed, he had not said much at all; but when he thus -caught her eye, and forced her to look at him, his face was more -eloquent than his tongue. It was not at any time an unmeaning face, and -to-day it meant a great deal; it meant a conviction that he was very -happily placed between two such bright and clever people; it meant great -attention and admiration and interest. Rita was caught by it as if he -had put forth his hand to stop her as she passed him. Stupid! how could -she have thought him stupid? That look was not stupid, not even heavy or -pre-occupied, like so many other young Englishmen, who looked distrait -when anything was talked of beyond their own little capacities. Harry -had not at all this aspect. If his mind was not quite up to the mark of -their conversation his attention was. He wanted to listen and to -understand. She looked at him, thus, once, twice, feeling each time more -favourably disposed—and the third time she fairly stopped and turned -round and addressed him.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Oliver,” she said, “we are very uncivil, papa and I. We are so used -to talking to each other that, when there is anyone here, if he does not -stop us and force us to listen to him, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> just go on. I have felt how -silly it was. I wish you would put a stop to us, and make us listen to -you.”</p> - -<p>“But I should not like that,” said Harry; “you talk a great deal better -than I do. Talking was never any gift of mine; but I like to listen. I -am picking up a great deal, though you may not think it. Everything is -so new to me here.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, I will ask you a very silly question,” said Rita; “I will -ask you what everybody will ask you, and of course you cannot tell yet -how to answer; but you will answer all the same. How do you like -Leghorn, Mr. Oliver? Do you think you will like us when you know us -better? I hope you think that is a nice commonplace beginning,” said -Rita, laughing; and a faint little colour came over her of half -amusement and half self-reproach.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, I don’t think it silly at all; I am commonplace myself,” said -Harry, with a little sigh. “I wish I could be more remarkable, but I -can’t. Yes, I like Leghorn very much, and I think I shall like all the -people I know, more and more as I know them better. But I don’t know -many people. Except Mr. Bonamy and yourself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> who have been so kind to -me, I have got but one friend.”</p> - -<p>“One friend, hear him! as if that was a thing that could be picked up at -every corner,” the Vice-Consul said.</p> - -<p>“I never saw anything like him,” said Harry, “he is like a child—and -very simple in his ways of thinking. He is twenty times better than I -am, and yet I feel sometimes as if I must laugh. You don’t know what -strange people we English are, Miss Bonamy. We can see how good a thing -is, and yet we can’t help laughing if it is a little out of the way.”</p> - -<p>“Then,” said Rita, “tell me why. I have no way of knowing but what -people tell me. There are things said about Englishmen just as there are -things said about women, in general. Now the women I know are quite -unlike each other. I cannot imagine any one thing that they would all -think or do. Are Englishmen all the same?”</p> - -<p>“Now, Oliver, be on your guard,” said her father, “that’s one of her -theories. She wants to push you into a corner and compel you to commit -yourself. Women have this and that way of thinking, we all say, don’t -we? and it’s quite true. ‘Really!’ says this little person, ‘I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> suppose, -then, women are all exactly like each other?’ Have a care, my young -friend; she looks innocent, but I don’t advise you to let yourself fall -into her hands.”</p> - -<p>“When I said Englishmen”—said Harry, faltering; then he gathered a -little boldness—“We are not all like each other: but this is rather -true of all of us—at least, so I think: we jeer at things we don’t -understand.”</p> - -<p>“Bravo,” said the Vice-Consul, clapping his hands, “I see you understand -our dear countrymen.”</p> - -<p>“We don’t mean much harm,” said Harry, led on beyond himself. “I suppose -that in other countries just the same happens in different ways. When -people act in a way we should not think of acting, we think it is so -strange that we—laugh at them. It is wrong, I have no doubt, and silly, -but still we do it. The first thing is, we laugh at them—Italians don’t -seem to do so. They are most polite.”</p> - -<p>“And the French don’t do it.”</p> - -<p>“Papa, they do a great deal worse,” said Rita; “for the language, for -instance, they are far more hard than you. When anyone speaks English -badly, you laugh, but you don’t mind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> The Frenchman doesn’t laugh, he -is horribly polite—but he thinks the worse of you for ever after. I see -what you mean. There is a kind of a way you have of looking at things in -the same light, which does not mean that you are alike, or all thinking -in the same way. Perhaps,” said Rita, meditatively, “that may be true of -Englishmen—and women too. Yes, I see how that might be true. I am very -much obliged to you, Mr. Oliver, for putting it in so clear a light.”</p> - -<p>Harry could only stare at her with a mixture of amazement and -gratification. He to be applauded for putting something in a clear -light! and by Rita, who knew so much more than he did. He could not but -laugh within himself at the unlikelihood of it; yet he was gratified by -the thought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /><br /> -<small>HARRY’S PROGRESS.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>FTER this, Harry “settled down.” It was a somewhat disappointing, -disenchanting process, but still it was better than it appeared at the -first glance. Paolo, finding that his friend could not be happy without -a sitting-room, which seemed to himself the most unnecessary of -luxuries, exerted himself to procure an appartamento for him which -should include this, and managed, after a little delay, to do so, at a -price so modest that Harry was astonished, and the padrone di casa much -disgusted and indignant when he found that he had actually suffered his -rooms to go, at a rent extravagant only for Italians, to an Englishman. -The landlord was so disappointed and annoyed by this that the occa<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>sion -made him voluble; for “Ecco!” he said, “a countryman, that is—a -countryman. He knows as much as we do. He is aware of everything. He can -do what he pleases. That he should have the rooms cheap, that -understands itself: that is all just. But a stranger! And, on the other -hand, they want so much more, these strangers. They will demand -breakfast, and even refreshments in the evening! They are so lazy they -will not give themselves the pain to descend to the caffè for their -coffee, which is the natural way, but will demand to have it here, which -is endless trouble. I never could have believed that Ser Paolo, who is a -person of education, would so have treated an old neighbour.” He said so -much on the subject that Harry, with something of that impatience and -careless magnificence which are (supposedly) the characteristics of the -English, declared that, rather than be so persecuted, he would pay -twenty lire a month more than had been asked of him, an offer which made -the padrone think him a great fool, but a true Englishman, and which -drove Paolo nearly out of himself with indignation. It may be understood -by this fact that Harry soon picked up as much Italian as made him -understand at least<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the tone of address, whether it was friendly or -angry: and in smaller matters he was soon able to make himself -understood.</p> - -<p>The first night of his residence in his new quarters, when he heard -Paolo close the door behind him, and felt himself left all alone at the -top of a tall Italian house, without a soul within call, gazing round -him at the four bare white walls, his lamp looking at him with three -unwinking eyes, and not a trace of anything that looked like home—vain -word!—the young fellow was altogether overcome, and staring round with -a wild look of despair, was as near breaking into idle tears as ever man -was. But what was the use? He had made his bed (or his people had made -it for him, as he thought), and there he must lie. He had half a dozen -books on the table: one upon the laws that affect shipping and the -maritime code, another on International Law generally, the rest Italian -grammars and dictionaries, a volume of easy little stories in the same -language, and that well-known volume of Silvio Pellico, out of which so -many people have learned their first Italian lessons. They were none of -them very interesting to Harry. “Le Mie Prigioni,” when you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> have made -it out with the aid of a dictionary, is not more tempting than any other -book would be under these circumstances. They were as blank as the white -walls, the silent room, the dead solitude of the place, to Harry. A -yellow novel, if he could have got that, would have been precious to -him. But he had not even that to fall back upon. He crept dismally to -bed, unable to contemplate his fate, and turned his face to the wall, -much as his mother was doing at home. But in the morning things were -better; and though he never could reconcile himself to the gloom and -solitude of his appartamento at night, during the day things went -tolerably well with him when he began to know what was being said around -him, and to wake up to the new insight which a new language confers. -Gradually he began to take a little interest in the porter’s family, in -the shrill padrona, shrieking her orders and her commentaries from the -balcony of the fourth piano across the deep well of the courtyard, who -was a terrible nuisance, yet by and by began to feel homelike, so that -he missed her sharp peacock-cry when the arrival of a baby compelled a -brief withdrawal from her usual active survey of the affairs of her -tenants. And so the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> time went on, and months passed, and Harry became -accustomed to his life.</p> - -<p>There were times, however, in which those slow beginnings of content -which soothed Harry’s mind, rose into something a great deal higher and -brighter: and these were the hours which he spent in the private rooms -at the Consulate, where, by degrees, he became very familiar, a sort of -son of the house. Harry never knew how this happened, nor did the -Bonamys themselves, who, bit by bit, opened their doors more completely -to him. They had never done so before to any clerk. The office generally -was held at arm’s length by the head of it. He was thought proud by the -<i>employés</i> generally. What was he, many even asked, that he should give -himself so many airs? But he never gave himself any airs to Harry. Even -when they began to forget that romance about the young squire who had -quarrelled with his family, which was entirely their own invention, they -did not turn away from or cast off the stranger who, falling into their -midst with no recommendations at all, had made himself so strong a -footing amongst them, partly from accident, partly from imagination. -Very soon, indeed, Harry came to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> be considered as part of the family; a -ready hand to be appealed to for everything; a ready hearer, though he -did not always understand: an invariably sympathetic and trustworthy -friend of the house. To Mr. Bonamy it was a great advantage to have some -one in the office whom he could treat upon this footing; to whom he -could speak confidentially of all that occurred, and with whom, if need -were, even in the bosom of society, he could confer on any accident of -official business, sending Harry off to do this or that, even from the -card-table where he was playing round games with the younger guests, or -out of the heart of a valse, when need was. Harry liked the dance, and -was merry and useful at the card-playing, but he never complained or -grumbled if he were sent away. He had to come back late when the company -was gone, to make his report, and that privilege atoned to him for the -self-sacrifice. On such occasions, when the great <i>salone</i> was still all -alight, and Rita reposing upon the sofa, or buried in a great chair, -after her exertions, while the Vice-Consul had already put on the light -dressing-gown in which he smoked his evening cigar, the young man, -returning, had the pleasantest welcome. Mr. Bonamy put<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> towards him his -box of cigarettes; the windows were all open; the warm Italian night -glowing out of doors; the stars shining, and every breath of the soft -air a delight. In that Italian room the light smoke was not thought out -of place. Rita had been used to it all her life. She might have taken -one of these little cigarettes herself and nobody thought any harm; but, -fortunately for Harry’s feelings, to whom it would have been a very -terrible profanation of a girl’s lips, she did not. But she lay back in -her chair, her pale face and dark locks relieved upon the soft, rich old -damask, and watched the two men with a smile. The Consul, who loved -everything that was beautiful, had his smoking-coat also made of -damask—a piece of brocade, in colours which Harry thought faded—and -he, too, threw himself negligently back in his chair and listened to his -young aide-de-camp’s report, with his fine head on one side, like a -benevolent prince listening to the information collected for him by a -young prime minister, all visionary, and eager in his plans for the -benefit of their people. Perhaps it was only a refractory ship-captain -whom Harry had talked into submission, or an impatient Englishman whose -suspicions of extortion had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> got him into trouble; and sometimes the -three would laugh over the characteristic follies of their countrymen, -and incapacity to understand the grandiloquence of the Italian -authorities. When Harry got to be sufficiently strong in the language, -he would himself make very merry over the <i>sentimento magnifico</i> of the -professional pillagers whose charges here and there drove a stranger -wild, but who always professed the noblest superiority to all interested -motives. Rita, who was more than half an Italian, was sometimes piqued -by the laughter in which her father joined, and would stand up for the -kindly race to whom she owed half her blood and all her training. She -would shine out from the soft background when she thus roused herself in -defence of her people, her great dark eyes glowing, her white little -figure all alive with energy. “You are all made up of suspicions, you -English,” she said. “You think everyone wants to cheat you, to get your -money from you. Yes, and it is you who want to get what they have from -them. I wonder who it is who picks up the pictures, and the -<i>bric-à-brac</i>, and shakes his head” (which she did with a good imitation -of her father’s benevolent regret), “and complains that all the little -dealers are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> beginning to know the value of the things they have to -sell, eh, papa? Old Leonardi showed his <i>sentimento magnifico</i> when he -let you have that little Ghirlandajo for next to nothing.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe it is a Ghirlandajo—of his school, that is all,” said -the Consul, blandly, “and he lets me have it cheap—not for nothing: he -lets me have it cheap because he thinks the English travellers will see -it here and will go to him to be fleeced, that is the best reason he -has, I fear.”</p> - -<p>“And if it is, you take advantage of it,” cried Rita. “Which is worst? -There was that piece of lace the other day. I said (it was quite true) -what shall I do with it, Signor Giovanni? it is not enough for a dress; -and he said, in the prettiest way, the Signorina shall put it upon her -handkerchief to remind her of old Leonardi. I took it; what could I do? -it would have made him angry if I had refused it after that. Was not -that the <i>sentimento magnifico</i>, Mr. Oliver—you who don’t believe in my -Italians? If I had offered him money for it he would never have spoken -to me again.”</p> - -<p>“I thought he was an old Jew,” said Harry;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> “but I see he is a fine old -fellow, and I shall go and buy something from him to-morrow. He will -cheat me; but I shan’t mind after what you have said.”</p> - -<p>“He will cheat you,” said the Vice-Consul, with equanimity; “though he -has a fine sense of the proper time to be honest, and the proper time to -be liberal all the same; but let us hear how you got your Englishman out -of his clutches, for that is the business immediately in hand.”</p> - -<p>And then Harry returned to his story, and told how the poor tourist had -raved and blasphemed, how he had bought a picture which was vouched for -as genuine, and it was found to be a flagrant copy; and how old Leonardi -had perjured himself over and over again, and sworn by all the saints -that there could be no doubt of its authenticity, holding up his fine -old Italian head in the very presence of the painter, who had made the -copy, and denying all knowledge of it. The tourist, whose settled -conviction it was that “the natives” everywhere were in league against -him, was, however, the chief point in Harry’s report. He had rather -thought so himself when he landed in Leghorn, and the feeling which had -made him refuse Paolo’s first offer of service, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> carry his own -portmanteau, and hunt out the hotel for himself, still lingered in his -bosom. He understood the character so well that he set it forth with -great power before his audience; and Harry was so much gratified by his -success, and by the gradual blowing away of the cloud which was on -Rita’s countenance, and the delightful laughter with which she chimed in -after a while, that he rose into higher heights. He himself was just -beginning to awake to the humours of the Englishman abroad, and it was -very pleasant to find himself superior to them, as one who understood -the language and knew the people, and could explain a good many mistakes -and misapprehensions away.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Oliver, you are very English,” Rita said gravely, after the story -and the laughter were over. She was apt to change in a moment, and with -the smile just disappearing from her lips, to produce the most serious -remark.</p> - -<p>“Am I?” said Harry, a little crestfallen; for he rather thought he had -made it apparent that he was very superior to the English—that is the -common English who travel, and who are often, as we all hasten to tell -our foreign friends, so little credit to the race. Then he added with -more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> spirit, “I suppose I am very English. What else could I be? I have -only been a year away.”</p> - -<p>“Do you call this ‘away?’<span class="lftspc">”</span> she said, with a somewhat startled tone. -“Yes, of course it is ‘away.’ Over there is what you have always been -used to—that is home—of course;” but the idea seemed to be new to -Rita, and not to give her pleasure. The Vice-Consul had gone off to his -business-room to get something that was wanted, and the two young people -were alone.</p> - -<p>“It may be home,” said Harry, with a roused and almost irritated tone; -“but I shall never see it again. Home has so many meanings. I shall say -presently I am going home, and I shall mean my appartamento—as Paolo -calls it—not very much of a home,” he said, with a sharp laugh.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it? I say home, too, when I speak of England; but I shall never -see it. Do you know I am never to be allowed to go to England, Mr. -Oliver? That makes me like to hear everything about it. Then you and I -are the same in that; but you will change your mind.”</p> - -<p>“You are much more likely to change your mind,” said Harry. “I—have -good reason——”</p> - -<p>“And do you think I have not good reason too? When my mother went there, -she died.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“She might have died anywhere,” Harry said.</p> - -<p>“It is harsh of you to say so. Yes, to be sure she might have died -anywhere: but they say it is so cold in England,” said Rita, with a -little shiver; the night air seemed all at once to have grown chilly. -She looked at the big window close to her and shivered again. Harry got -up and closed it without a word.</p> - -<p>“It is cold, when you expect it to be cold,” said Harry; “that is pretty -often, to be sure: but it does not take you in an underhand way like -this. In England it is all above-board; it blows right in your face, it -does not steal in like <i>that</i> behind your back and chill you. Things are -honest at home. I think I could take you all over England, and you would -get no harm.”</p> - -<p>“Could you?” said Rita eagerly; “do you know a way? but how then, Mr. -Oliver? tell me, do you know a way?”</p> - -<p>“It would be just to take care of you,” said Harry, with a blush. “I -know <i>that</i> way. I should understand that you wanted taking care of, and -I would take care of you. For my part, I should not be a bit afraid.”</p> - -<p>Rita did not notice the blush on his face. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> desire of her heart was -to go to England, and this made her think. She had the credulity of her -birthplace about wonderful elixirs and miraculous ways of doing a -dangerous thing. She looked at him dreamily, yet eagerly, with her great -eyes. “But <i>how</i> should you do it?” she repeated, “Mr. Oliver; if there -is some particular way, will you tell me? For if you only knew—if you -could only know how I wish to go to England——!”</p> - -<p>“There is no particular way,” said Harry; “if I were ever to go back -home, which I never shall—and if you were to go with me, which most -likely you never would—then you should go, and no harm would happen to -you; that is all I know.”</p> - -<p>He spoke abruptly, and he was flushed and hasty. Rita did not think at -the moment what it meant; she sat very quiet in her great chair, while -her father came in and resumed the conversation—thinking over what he -had said. Immediately there had risen before her a vision of the white -cliffs she had heard of so often, and of green fields and red roofs, and -of all the special features of English scenery which she had read of. -What could it be that made him so sure? “If I were ever to go, which I -never shall—and if you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> were to come with me, which most likely you -never would—— Well, no,” Rita said to herself, with a half smile, “not -much likelihood of that; how could I go with him? he means if we were to -take him with us—he means——” and then she came to a pause, and a -sudden reflection of the colour on Harry’s face wavered over hers for a -minute; only a minute. She was not altogether inexperienced in life; she -had already been the subject of several proposals addressed to her -father, which he had declined after reference to Rita, so that she was -aware that she was looked upon with favourable eyes by various persons, -and that the love which is so much talked of in books might light upon -her at any moment. Rita had, for her part, no particular objection; she -had even left the door of her heart open, so that when he was thereabout -that intrusive sentiment might come in if he pleased. But up to this -moment he had not come in; the door had stood open, but nothing had -entered except poetry and gentle thoughts. But Rita, after this -conversation, experienced a very curious sensation. She felt not as if -anyone had got in by the door, but as if some one passing had half -stumbled against it, finding it closed, and, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> answer being given, had -gone his way. In the first haze of this idea she got up from her chair -and said good night, and went off to her room, complaining that she was -sleepy. But she was not sleepy; she sat down and began to think as soon -as she had got within the protection of her chamber. It was not any -personal feeling that moved her, far less any strong emotion; but all at -once she was conscious of a keen and lively curiosity springing up in -her mind, eager and lively as her nature. Did he mean——? What did he -mean? “If I were to go to England—which I never shall—and if you were -to come with me——” Why should she go with him? What reason could there -be for such a thing, what excuse? He must be mad to make such a -suggestion; but yet it kept coming back to her. “If I were to go, and if -you were to come with me.” Certainly the door of that hidden chamber in -her heart had swung to and closed, and somebody passing, a stranger, had -run up against it, and shaken it, as if to try whether it would be easy -to open. It was a very strange suggestion. Rita had been sought by -persons of condition, by people who had something to offer, and who had -made their proposals, as everybody who respects himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> does in Italy, -to the young lady’s father. But here was somebody who was nobody, and -who took hold of the handle of that door of her heart, which she had -believed to be open, but which had evidently closed of itself, and gave -it a sharp shake, without thinking of her father or any consequences -whatever. She thought of it for a long time, turning it over and over -with the greatest curiosity. It was a new thing in her experience. He -wanted a great many of the qualities which she considered indispensable -in a man. First and chiefest of all he was not clever. He knew nothing -about books, he scarcely knew a picture when he saw one. Instead of -hunting about in the <i>bric-à-brac</i> shops as her father did, and as even -little Paolo Thompson (whom Mr. Oliver called Paul-ó) was in the habit -of doing, picking up wonderful things now and then, this stranger gazed -with blank eyes at the treasures, and could not understand them. He was -altogether a different kind of man from any she had ever seen, a -homelier, duller sort of man; and yet he was not dull. The whole house -was quiet and asleep when Rita suddenly sprang up from this long -reverie, catching sight of her own big eyes in her looking-glass, and -wonder<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>ing at the wonder in them. She had got a new idea into her active -little head. It was something novel and curious, and very amusing, but -it did not seem to her at all necessary that it should ever come to -anything. She wondered what he would say next, or how he would look, or -what he would do. She was pleased on the whole to think that now perhaps -she would have an opportunity of watching what a man looked like in such -circumstances as these, which is a thing always interesting and, some -people think, very amusing to see.</p> - -<p>As for Harry, he went home that evening with a sensation not less -extraordinary, but much more definite than that of Rita. He had not -thought of the meaning of what he was saying till he had said it; he had -not been aware of meaning anything, and yet he knew now that he did mean -it. What had he been doing? Without a name, without a home, without -anything in the world, he had been so foolish as to fall in love with a -girl who, in the best of circumstances, would have been above him. The -Joscelyns thought a great deal of themselves; but when Harry thought of -the parlour at the White House, and then of Rita’s drawing-room, he felt -that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> was immeasurably above him, and that to say such a thing to -her was not only wrong, but mean and ungenerous. If you were to come -with me—Good life, why had he suggested that to her? <i>She</i> come with -him? It seemed ridiculous, more out of the question to Harry than it had -done to Rita. He was angry beyond measure with himself for letting -himself be run away with, so to speak, by the foolish impulse of the -moment. For he had never meant to say it, or indeed to suggest any idea -of the kind. He was full of sense, though passion had him in its power -when it once got hold of him. In the meantime, however, there was no -question of passion. It was the pleasure of his life to be with Rita, to -see her, to do little services for her, to hear her talk; but when the -idea was suddenly set before him that he might marry Rita and carry her -away with him, Harry was more frightened than she was. He to think of -such a thing! He walked home at such a pace, with such a swift, -impatient step, that the few passengers in the streets turned about to -look after him, wondering what business he might have in hand—if he -were going for a doctor, or any such urgent occasion; but Harry was -walking fast only to keep up with his thoughts, which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> suddenly been -let loose like colts in a pasture, and were all careering about wildly, -so that it was impossible to catch or lay hold upon them. How could he -have been so mad as to have let them loose! and he wondered had she -understood him? But how could she understand him, a child like that? she -was too innocent to understand. He hurried along to his apartment in -full chase after that wild herd of thoughts and imaginations. If he had -them but once safely shut up again under lock and key certainly it would -be a strong temptation indeed that would tempt him to let them loose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /><br /> -<small>A REVELATION.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>ARRY found himself thus brought up, and forced to give, to himself, an -account of himself, such as he had never in his consciousness been -compelled to make before. He was in an altogether new position, and it -was indispensable that he should know where it was leading to, and what -was meant by it. There had been no occasion to inquire into this before. -He had plenty to do learning Italian, learning about the shipping, -getting into the duties of his new life. The Consul’s house and the -Consul’s daughter had been his little bit of happiness, his reward after -his work, his diversion from those dismal sensations of utter solitude -which had almost overwhelmed him at first; and he had not thought of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> -any complication of interests or feelings. Nothing need have awakened -him from this comfortable state if it had not been that unlucky -conversation about going to England. Why should he have talked about -going to England? He never meant to go back, or, if ever, not at least -until he had grown rich and altogether independent of <i>them</i> and their -kindness. But in the meantime there did not seem any immediate -likelihood of growing rich, and why he should have stepped outside all -the boundaries of his life and suggested the sudden possibility of going -home and taking Miss Bonamy with him, baffled Harry’s comprehension. -Sometimes we say and even do things which on looking back upon them we -feel were not our doing at all, but that of some one else, rather our -enemy than otherwise, some one making a distinct effort to get us into -trouble. This was Harry’s sensation now; he was half angry and half -frightened. It was some malign, mischievous traitor wanting to betray -him, not himself, who had said that. He went home breathless, and when -he had climbed all those dark stairs to his rooms, and lighted his lamp, -he sat down, and, as it were, called a council of himself, to inquire -who had done it. But it is a great deal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> easier to feel that some one -has betrayed us in this way than it is to determine who has done it; for -those internal traitors have no names, and cannot be brought to the bar. -His investigation so far was fruitless; but it was fertile enough in -other ways, in ways in which he did not feel any anxiety to investigate. -Harry had never been brought into familiar intercourse with any girl -before. He had seen them at a distance, in circumstances which made no -approach possible, even if he had desired it; and he did not know that -he had ever desired it. Once or twice he had been struck by a pretty -face, and had felt a passing wish, mingled with reluctance, to make -further acquaintance with it; that is he would have wished it if he had -been able to get over his shyness, and the difficulty of knowing what to -say, and the trouble of overcoming all the preliminary obstacles. But -here none of these difficulties had existed; he had come quite naturally -into Rita’s acquaintance at once, as if she had been a comrade of his -own. There had been no shyness, no hesitation, but the easy talk of a -table at which strangers were constantly appearing and disappearing, and -a house in which this young creature, though so young, was the mistress, -and used to all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> exertions necessary to set people at their ease. He -had admired her he said to himself, from the first—who could help -admiring her? but it had been so clearly her part to entertain and amuse -the people about her, and she had been so pleasantly indifferent, so -innocently at her ease, so oblivious of his presence often, so kind when -her attention was called to him, that all those little bulwarks of -freedom, which boys and girls when they are made conscious of each -other, set up instinctively, had been useless in this case. She was -neither afraid of him nor solicitous about him. Sometimes she took no -more notice than if he had been a cabbage, and at other times was as -seriously confidential as if he had been eighty. Harry had liked all the -ways of it. He had been piqued a little sometimes, but afterwards had -found it quite natural, and liked her friendliness and indifference, and -the occasional moment of household intimacy, when she would look at him -to indicate some little service she wanted, as she might have looked at -her brother, without words, taking his interest and compliance for -granted. And gradually, without any thought, this had come to be the -pleasure and support of Harry’s life. When he did not see her, when he -was not at the house<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> for a whole day, it was a dull day indeed; but -still faintly illuminated by to-morrow, when he was sure to see her. -When she went away upon a visit, which happened once, the Consul’s -despondency kept him in countenance. Mr. Bonamy adopted Harry in her -place. “Come in and help me to eat something,” he said, “I can’t bear -her empty seat. When my Rita is away I feel inclined to hang myself.” -Harry had almost betrayed himself (to himself) by the warmth of the -sympathy which he bestowed upon the disconsolate father; but as Mr. -Bonamy ended by a doleful laugh at himself as an old fool, Harry laughed -too, and the catastrophe was averted, and so things had gone on for a -whole long year.</p> - -<p>What a year that had been!—far the most wonderful of Harry’s life. So -many new things had happened to him; he had been torn out of all his old -habits, and made into another man with a new set of habits—as new as -the light-coloured clothes in which alone it was possible to live on -those southern coasts. And he had become so much the more of a man that -he was now, so to speak, two men, one developed out of the other. He -looked back upon the Henry Joscelyn of Liverpool with a mixture of -amusement and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> pity. He had been a poor sort of limited creature, not -knowing much; going half asleep between his office and his lodgings, now -and then going to a poor theatre, walking about with small clerks in -other offices, who knew nothing more than their own little gossip and -the town news, and the fluctuations of trade. Perhaps it was a sign that -Harry himself had not yet reached any great elevation, that he thought -his present life so greatly superior. The reader knows he had not -thought so always. He had compared his big, bare room, with its four -white walls, most unfavourably with the carpeted and curtained parlour -of his Liverpool experiences. But since that time his mind had undergone -many transformations. His appartamento had become to him what Paolo’s -was, a decent and tranquil shelter for the night. He had no longer -thought of the respectabilities, of sitting there for a whole evening, -of drinking tea, and having his friends to see him there. These were old -customs at which he smiled. He had acquired a great many others which -were now to him not only a second nature, but far more enjoyable, more -lifelike, he thought, than the old. At all events, they were the habits -of the present, not of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> past. And amidst these changes, the advance -in which might be questionable, were various other changes in Harry’s -life of which the advantage was unquestionable. To live half his time in -the Consul’s house, between a man of culture and education, and a young, -fresh, intelligent girl, who had grown up knowing a world of things -until then sealed books to Harry; and to have to do, not with mere -bookkeeping, and sales, and goods of various descriptions, but with men, -in a hundred little perplexities, out of which his skill, his patience, -his superior knowledge, had to deliver them—were educating influences -of the most active kind. He was a different man, and he felt himself to -be so. How much he was the same man of course it was more difficult for -Harry to see.</p> - -<p>And here, in his new life, he had come to the first great difficulty; -things had gone on smoothly, not a hitch anywhere. He had discharged all -his duties to the satisfaction of his chief. He had acquired the very -phraseology of a much higher class than that which he naturally belonged -to, and talked of his chief as if he had been a fine gentleman in a -public office. Many people, indeed, believed that Harry had been sent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> -out by the “F.O.” with special instructions to keep Mr. Bonamy in order; -and many more that he had come to Mr. Bonamy with the strongest -recommendations from that dignified and mysterious power. Nobody guessed -that he had been picked up off the streets, so to speak, by the mere -generous caprice and mistaken romantic fancy of the rich official, who -might, for all he knew, have been jeopardising the credit of the office -by admitting a young adventurer to its sacred shelter. Mr. Bonamy had -long ago forgotten that Harry had come to his present promotion in any -illegitimate or irregular way, or that the appointment had occurred -otherwise than in the ordinary course; and Oliver was his right hand, -his constant refuge, his aide-de-camp in all things. He had even -forgotten that he did not know all about the origin of the stranger who -was now so freely admitted to his house. He was rash in that as in other -matters, and though he would have given his life for his daughter it -never occurred to him to take those precautions about her which the most -selfish parent usually thinks it necessary to take. Everything had gone -smoothly for Harry. At the Consul’s house he had met “the best people” -that were to be found in Leghorn,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> the rich English merchants, and also -many Italians, old traditionary friends of Rita’s mother, who was of -Italian blood. By this time Harry had got a footing among them, and was -asked to other houses, and known everywhere. Everything was going -smoothly. He had no reason to be discontented or anxious about his -future life. Everybody knew him, and nobody knew other than good of him. -Whatever happened he would never again be the desolate stranger, with a -new name, and no reputation, who had landed friendless on these shores.</p> - -<p>And yet, with all these advantages, and this progress, suddenly, in a -moment, he was brought to a standstill by this discovery. What wonder if -Harry was provoked beyond bearing with himself and that traitor in him, -who would not be brought to book? There was something almost ludicrous -in his dismay. Why couldn’t you hold your tongue? he said, indignantly, -to that something within him. Who wanted to know what you were thinking? -What is the good of it now you have let it out? It was a ridiculous -discussion, there being no one to reply, but yet it gave expression to -the self-provoked and impatient character of Harry’s dilemma. For how -was he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> to banish it back again and go on as if that idiotic suggestion -had never been made?</p> - -<p>Love is not so simple a thing as people think, at least in these -artificial days. In the old simple story-books, and, indeed, often still -in life, when such a revelation as this comes to a man, he jumps at once -to the natural conclusion, throws himself at once into the situation, -wooes, proposes, and, if he is successful, ends by being at -least—engaged. Sometimes he does this with a noble indifference to -circumstances and possibilities, or, at least, an indifference which, -when he has spirit enough to take the consequences upon himself, and -boldly hew possibility out of impossibility, is noble. Sometimes he -leaps the intervening steps and thinks of nothing but of marrying as the -natural and inevitable conclusion. The woman invariably does this; love -to her means marriage, or it means nothing at all. It is an offence to -her delicacy to play with it, to keep any decision at arm’s length, as -men often think themselves justified in doing; so that it remains more -simple (unless she is a coquette) in her case than in his. But with a -man, now-a-days, at least, to enjoy all the gratifications and delicate -bloom of nascent love without coming to any crisis, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> must make an -entire change of all these relations and modes of living necessary, is -often very desirable. But this reluctance to come to a decision, though -sometimes selfish, is not so always; and in Harry’s case it was not -selfish. He had not walked open-eyed into this snare which life is -continually setting for young feet; he had tumbled into it unawares; and -in his situation, being unlucky enough to have tumbled into it, his only -policy, his only honourable course, was either to get out of it with as -much expedition as possible, or to hold his tongue about it, and never -to betray his plight to the other person involved. But Harry had been -betrayed, to himself, at least, if not to <i>her</i>, and the question now -was, what was he to do? He sat and thought over this question, as on the -other side of it Rita was doing—though this he did not know, nor guess; -but he could not for his part make anything of it. He could not keep -away from the Consul’s house, or shut himself out from her society, -without further betrayal. His situation was such that if he remitted his -visits, if he failed to appear with all the ease and familiarity to -which he had been admitted, and which had been growing for a year past, -he could not fail to be questioned on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> subject, and his secret drawn -from him. Even if he kept a little aloof from Rita, avoided her as much -as civility permitted, and avoided occasions of being with her, that -also would be remarked. What was he to do? For now that he had once -betrayed himself who could guarantee that, continuing to see her every -day, as he had been doing, he might, on some other occasion, betray -himself still more distinctly. His embarrassment and trouble grew the -more he thought of it. It could not be, surely, that he would be -compelled to go out upon the desert world again and begin anew? Surely, -surely, that would not be necessary! And yet, what was he to do? The -question on Rita’s side by no means interfered with her rest, save for -that hour or so when she chose to think of it, instead of brushing her -hair; but it took away Harry’s, upon whom all the responsibility rested. -Her feeling on the matter came only the length of a certain amused -interest and curiosity as to how he would conduct himself in the future, -and what he meant by these odd speeches; but his affected all his life. -Whether he should stay where he was, or go away; whether he should have -to throw aside again all his hopes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> advancement, all his comfort and -renewed confidence in his fate, all hung in the balance. He turned -uneasily on his bed all the night through, dozing and dreaming of it, -and waking to ask the same question again. But the night brings counsel, -and when he woke somewhat late the next morning from the sleep which -overtook him at last in the midst of his deliberations, he woke with a -new idea in his mind, as we so often do, after a long consideration. The -first words he said to himself as he woke were, “I will ask Paolo.” For -a moment he could not tell what the momentous subject was that he was to -ask Paolo about.</p> - -<p>Paolo had continued to be Harry’s faithful friend; but their intercourse -had been disturbed by the society at the Consulate, for, except on some -special occasion, he was not important enough to be introduced to all -the fine company that assembled there; only now and then when all the -<i>employés</i> were asked, and a little semipublic fête for them banished -the fine people, did Paolo enter these enchanted walls, and talk with -the young mistress of the house. He had scarcely ever talked to Harry of -the Signorina, but when he did mention her there had been a slightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> -cynical tone in his remarks. To tell the truth, Paolo had never got over -that first appearance of the Vice-Consul’s daughter in the street at -night. He had recognized her, clinging to her old attendant, hurrying -away, while Harry, all unconscious of what was to come of it, had -stopped the Italians who were pursuing her, and summarily knocked down -the Englishman. Paolo was not ill-natured, nor given to ill-thinking, -but he was an Italian, and he could not imagine any perfectly virtuous -motive which could have taken a young lady out of her house at that -hour. That love or intrigue had something to do with it he was -convinced, and all the proof in the world could not have persuaded him -otherwise. But he did not wish to throw any indiscreet light upon her -proceedings, or to betray her to the world. With some sense of this, -though without ever explaining to himself how it was that he had such a -feeling, Harry had refrained from telling him the climax of the story. -He had left the Consul’s sudden friendship unexplained, Paolo requiring -no explanation of it, and feeling it the most simple and natural thing -in the world. But during the whole interval there had been in Paolo’s -tone a note of un<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>expressed warning against the Vice-Consul’s daughter; -he had not said anything, but he had left something to be inferred. This -Harry had sometimes resented, sometimes laughed at, but he had never -taken the warning or been moved by the tone. He thought it was a -prejudice such as one person sometimes feels quite unaccountably against -another; or that perhaps it was some pique; perhaps that Paolo himself -had admired too much the young princess who was so entirely out of his -reach: but whatever was the cause, he was conscious enough that Paolo -was not favourable to the lady of his thoughts. And he resolved -accordingly to ask the advice of his friend on the grand question only. -He would not give him any special information, or even indicate, however -vaguely, who the lady was. That he should speak to Paolo at all on the -subject showed that a change had come over Harry’s thoughts. It would be -too much to say that he did not entertain still a somewhat contemptuous -estimate of the little “foreigner” who had sworn eternal friendship at -first sight, and had wept, and even kissed his friend, in his rapture at -his good fortune. When Harry recalled that embrace he grew red still, -with the undying indignation which moves a man when he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> been made -ridiculous. And he still treated Paolo <i>de haut en bas</i>, with a careless -superiority. But by this time he had learned to know that Paolo was on -some things a much better authority than himself, and that, though he -might be trivial and absurd on questions which Englishmen consider -themselves judges of, yet there were other matters, chiefly touching his -own countrymen, which he knew better than any Englishman. To have -attained to this conviction was in a way a moral advance for Harry, who -formerly had looked down upon “foreigners,” not thinking them worth the -trouble of studying, or esteeming the knowledge which was only concerned -with them and their ways. He had no opportunity of speaking to Paolo -till dinner. They were both of them faithful, more or less, to the -<i>table-d’hôte</i> at the Leone, where they had first become friends: but -Harry’s attendance there now was irregular, and when he entered the -dining-room Paolo’s face became radiant with pleasure. He seized his -friend’s arm and gave it a squeeze of satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“But without doubt you go somewhere in the evening?” he said, with a -mixture of wistfulness and triumphant pride. He was proud of Harry’s -succès in society; but yet to have so little of him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> pained the faithful -soul. He had bettered his English, but perhaps he had not much improved -his happiness by his devotion to this stranger, to whom he had been so -useful. Harry gave him very little of his company, and no demonstration -of affection in return for his love.</p> - -<p>“No; I want you to come to my rooms, Paolo. I want to consult you about -something—we’ll have some coffee brought up there, and we’ll have a -talk.”</p> - -<p>“Benissimo!” said Paolo, glowing with pleasure. “However,” he added with -simplicity, “there is little that I can instruct you in now. You know -all—you are better as me. But if there is any case that is hard to -understand——”</p> - -<p>“You make me ashamed of myself,” said Harry; “do you really think I -never want to see you but when I have something to ask? I don’t think I -am quite so bad as that. Of course I have picked your brains constantly; -but still I am not so bad as that.”</p> - -<p>At this Paolo was up in arms, as if some terrible accusation had been -brought against him.</p> - -<p>“Pardon, pardon, Amico,” he said. “Do you think I am finding fault? do -you think I make myself a censure over you (he meant censor, but this -was unimportant)? It is all otherwise. To<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> see you go into society makes -me pleasure—the grandest pleasure. If not me, it is my friend—it is as -good—better, as to go myself. You pick my brains—<i>bene</i>! my brains is -glad to be pick.”</p> - -<p>“I think you are the best fellow in the world,” Harry said, “and I am a -beast always to take advantage of you—to come to you whenever I want -you.”</p> - -<p>“What then is a friend?” said Paolo, with that glistening of the eyes -which Harry was always afraid of. And then the excellent fellow -suppressed himself, knowing Harry’s objections to a scene. “I am a -duffare,” he said, with a laugh, “if there is something I can do that -makes me glad.”</p> - -<p>“I want your advice, Paolo,” said Harry; “it is nothing about business; -it is not information I want from you. I am in a difficulty—I am in -trouble—and I want your advice.”</p> - -<p>“In troouble!” Paolo’s face grew long, long as his arm; his lively -imagination harped at various cases of “troouble” he had known: -defalcations at the office, difficulties about money, fallings into -temptation. His countenance clouded with anxiety and alarm. “Amico,” he -said, “I am all at your disposition—all at your disposition! Troouble! -let us not lose the time. That turns me<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the stomach, as you say. -Thanks, thanks, Antonio; but take it away—I cannot more eat.”</p> - -<p>“That’s nonsense, old fellow,” said Harry, plying his own knife and fork -vigorously, “you see it don’t take away my appetite. Come, eat your -dinner. I’ve not been going to the bad, if that’s what you think, you -goose.”</p> - -<p>“Go-ose? I am willing to be goose,” said Paolo, “if it’s all right; not -anything in the bureau? not with accounts, or money, or nothing of the -sort? Benissimo?—then I will have some of that dish, Antonio, and it is -all right.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder what you take me for,” said Harry, offended. “Money! do you -think I am that sort? No, no, Paolo. When you’ve finished your -dinner—you have eaten nothing but that maccaroni—we’ll go to my rooms -and talk it over. It is something about myself.”</p> - -<p>It was all Harry could do after this to persuade his friend not to -gobble up everything that was offered to him in his anxiety to get his -meal over. Paolo could not contain his curiosity and eager interest. He -almost dragged his friend along the street when dinner was concluded, -and clambered the long staircase like a cat, in his eagerness to know -what Harry’s difficulty was, and to proceed immediately to smooth it -over and ravel it out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /><br /> -<small>PAOLO’S ADVICE.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE room was large, and low, and white. There was a little balcony -hanging from the windows; the usual bright-coloured pattern on the -walls; the usual sofa and chairs, and little rug on the tiled floor. -Harry had not taken any particular care of his room or its decoration. -The lamp burned with three little clear tongues of flame in the centre -of the scene. Paolo sat in a large chair, thrown back, his little -intelligent, intent face showing from the dark background; his feet -flicking in front of him. As for Harry, he was too shy to sit still and -tell his story under the light of his friend’s large, eager eyes, which -leaped at the words before they were said. He was walking about from one -end of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> room to the other. On the table was the little coffee-pot, -the thick, white cups upon a tray. Harry did not despise black coffee -now. Sometimes he came up to the table, and poured it out and swallowed -it hastily; while all the time Paolo, swinging his foot in front of him, -and leaning back in his chair, never took from him his eager black eyes.</p> - -<p>“And the short and the long of it,” said Harry, “is that I have fallen -in love.” He turned his back to his companion as he spoke, and stood -looking out from the open window. “I have been about the house so much, -and seen the young lady so often, that without thinking, and without -meaning it, I have just fallen in love. Jove! what a beautiful night it -is!” said Harry; “I never saw the stars so bright: that’s just the -position of affairs. She is quite out of my rank, I know, as impossible -as the stars themselves: but that’s how it is.”</p> - -<p>“Fallen—in lofe?” Paolo mused for a moment over the words. “It is -droll, the English way of speaking. Is it then a deep, or a sea, or a -precipice, that you—fall.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t bother,” cried Harry. “To be sure it is a deep, and a sea, -and a precipice. Why,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> every fool knows that. You are never thinking of -anything of the sort, going along quite quietly, minding your own -business—when all in a moment down you go squash, and there’s no help -for you any more.”</p> - -<p>Paolo smiled a benevolent but somewhat tremulous smile.</p> - -<p>“The young lady is very beautiful—that goes without saying,” he said. -“I had thought you would have taken your freedom a little longer, and -you wish to marry and range yourself. <i>Bene!</i> it will be what you call -all oop with me,” said Paolo, with a slight quiver; “a wife—that goes -not along with a friend—not a friend of the heart like me. It makes a -beginning to many things, but also to some an end.”</p> - -<p>“Good gracious!” cried Harry, “do you mean to say you don’t understand -me? Am I in a condition to marry? I have not a penny. I have my little -salary, and that is all. If I could jump up and ask her to marry me, -above-board in our English way, do you think I’d ask any advice about -it? I don’t want you to tell me she’s nice, I know that myself a great -deal better than you could tell me. It is just because I can’t marry, -and ought to hold my tongue and never say a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> a word about it—and yet -can’t help seeing her continually, that I don’t know what to do.”</p> - -<p>Paolo looked at him with a still more wistful, anxious face. He was -terribly perplexed. There was an alternative which was not at all -impossible to his imagination; but having on many occasions already come -in contact forcibly with the English mind, as represented in Harry, he -was afraid to state or refer to the other side of the question, which -nevertheless was not at all terrible to himself. He looked very -wistfully and earnestly in his friend’s face, trying hard to read and -make out what was in it. What was in it? Did he mean——? Paolo could -not tell whether he might venture to say what he would have said easily -enough to many of his other friends.</p> - -<p>“You would then—that understands itself; but to put it into words, -above all with an English what you call Puritano—like you; you would -then—make a little arrangement—you would then propose—without going -to church.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?” said Harry. He turned round upon his friend with blazing eyes. -“Eh?” The monosyllable was more terrible than a whole chapter of -invectives. Astonishment, non-comprehension,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> yet at the same time -alarmed and furious understanding were in it. Paolo, who was a miracle -of quick intelligence, saw all that was in Harry’s look almost before he -himself was conscious of it, and he mended his indiscretion with the -rapidity of lightning.</p> - -<p>“I have make a mistake,” he said. “I have not understood. It is so -sudden, I had no preparation. If you will perhaps tell me again?”</p> - -<p>Harry stared with wide open eyes like a bull, not quite knowing whether -to charge an adversary, or to turn away from an insignificant intruder. -The more peaceable impulse prevailed. He had stood still gazing at -Paolo, who, mentally trembling, though he put the best face he could -outwardly upon the matter, met his friend’s gaze with a deprecating -smile. After a minute he resumed his pacing about the floor.</p> - -<p>“I see you don’t understand,” he said, with something between a groan -and a sigh. “Well then, I’ll try again. Here are the circumstances. I am -admitted to the house, a very nice house, in which I am very happy. The -father puts faith in me; he trusts me like a friend; the young lady -is—everything that is nice. Well! don’t you see? like a fool, instead -of keeping quiet and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> enjoying all this, like a fool I have gone and -fallen in love with her. And last night I was as near betraying -myself—— Now if I go on I’ll be more and more tempted to betray -myself. I can’t keep away from the house—it is not possible. I can’t -offer to the young lady because I am not good enough for her, and I have -no money. Now what am I to do?”</p> - -<p>“You were at the house of the Signor Vice-Consul last night?”</p> - -<p>“Never mind where I was,” said Harry sharply, “tell me what I am to do.”</p> - -<p>“It would be well, amico mio, that your confidence was more great, or -none at all,” said Paolo. “If it should happen that I possessed the -acquaintance of the father and the daughter——” There was a little -incipient smile upon his lip that drove Harry wild.</p> - -<p>“I believe you think badly of every woman,” he cried; “all the worse for -you if you do. I am not going to make any confidences of that sort. Look -here—you know more about society than I do. You know how people are -expected to behave here. Ought I just to cut the whole concern, though I -don’t want to—and take myself off?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Harry came to a sudden stop in front of his friend when he asked this -question, and, for his part, Paolo almost screamed with alarm.</p> - -<p>“Cut—the whole concern? That is to go away?”</p> - -<p>“To go away,” said Harry, discharging all the breath out of his -capacious chest in one great sigh, and throwing himself into the second -great chair opposite Paolo. His friend grew pale; his olive cheeks were -blanched; the lids were puckered round his anxious and almost despairing -eyes.</p> - -<p>“That is what you must not do—that is what you shall not do! It is not -permitted to throw away, to make such a sacrifice,” cried Paolo, with a -rapid succession of phrases, one broken sentence hurrying upon another. -“No, no, no, no. Imagine to yourself that all goes so well. The world -regards you with so favourable eyes; you are everywhere received, -everywhere received!—a favourite, Isaack mio. But no, no; this must not -be—for a girl—for a promise—for a caprice, you will not throw away -your career.”</p> - -<p>Harry did not say anything. He lay back drearily in his chair, his whole -person making one oblique line from his head, which rested on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> the back -of the chair, to the feet stretched out on the floor. He was not likely -to talk about his career, but he felt to the bottom of his heart the -dismal alternative: to go away; to throw up everything; to resign -himself to another new and much less favourable beginning. His new start -in Leghorn had been made in circumstances so extraordinarily favourable -that they looked like a romance, and he himself could scarcely believe -them true—all the more reason why he should not presume now upon the -hospitality of the house which had taken him in; but he never could by -any possibility hope for such another piece of good fortune. In all this -he put Rita herself out of the question. Perhaps he did not feel, as a -lover sometimes does, as if his entire life was involved in her -acceptance of him. He was a sober-minded young man. It would cost him a -great wrench, it would take the colour and the pleasure out of his life -if he were banished from the happy rooms in which she reigned. But yet, -honour requiring it, he could do this and live; he was not afraid of -himself so far. But how to continue here in the enjoyment of his other -advantages and withdraw from the house in which he had been received so -kindly, he did<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> not know. It would be impossible without explanations, -and what explanation could he give?</p> - -<p>“Look you ’ere,” said Paolo, rising in his turn, taking advantage of all -the devices of oratory to move his friend, “lofe, that is one thing; -life, that is another. For a capriccio I say nothing. We all have such; -by times it will seem as though you live not but in possession of the -object; but after, that will pass, and you will laugh, and all will go -on as before.”</p> - -<p>“Hold your tongue; you don’t know anything about it,” said Harry, with a -contemptuous wave of the hand.</p> - -<p>“I have had my experiences like another,” said Paolo, mildly. “I am not -an ignorant. It is for a moment you suffer, you think all is ovare. -But—oh, bah!—when it is ovare so many things remain. There is the -bureau,” said Paolo, counting on his fingers, “there are the events of -the day; there is the table—for you must always eat; there is -society—which is made,” he added sententiously, “of other objects. In -brief, amico mio, there is to live. That must be done all the same. For -the moment it may be hard—but sooner or later the time of calm will -arrive—What then? If it be certain that an hour will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> come when you -will have had enough, when you will become weary——”</p> - -<p>Harry sat up in his chair. “What are you talking about?” he said.</p> - -<p>With his honest English imagination he did not know what the other -meant. He had never read a French novel in his life (he could not, -indeed, if he had wished), nor any English ones of that sort. According -to him, when a man “fell in love” it was with the intention of marrying -the girl he loved, and living happy ever after. The idea that it would -last only for so long, and that there would come a time when you would -have enough, and be weary—a moment which must arrive sooner or -later—was such a thing as had no meaning to him. Paolo turned, too, -when his friend said this, and gazed at him, startled and wondering. -Suddenly the little Italian became aware that he was speaking another -language, a tongue unknown to Harry. He did not know Harry’s tongue so -far as this went, but being very quick and intelligent he perceived at -once that it was not the same as his, and that in speaking as he did he -had completely missed Harry’s comprehension. This took away from him the -power of speech. How was he to find out Harr<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>y’s language? They remained -for a full minute thus, baffled each by each, gazing at each other: -Paolo, small and keen, trying hard to make his friend out; Harry, large, -obtuse, confused, wondering what on heaven and earth this strange little -being could mean.</p> - -<p>“Look here,” he said at last, “I’m English, you know. I don’t follow you -a bit. Perhaps you’re too refined, and all that. You don’t fathom my -difficulty, and I don’t understand in the least what you mean. Here’s -what I want: just listen. I am fond of a girl, but I daren’t tell her -I’m fond of her, because you know I have nothing to marry on, and I am -not such a cur as to ask her to bury herself up for years waiting for -me; and besides, it wouldn’t be handsome to her father, who has been -very kind to me. What am I to do? Ought I to go right away? I don’t want -to do that. Or can you tell me how I’m to put a padlock on my tongue, -and go on seeing her, and never betray myself? No, by Jove! I don’t -think I am strong enough for that.”</p> - -<p>“There is one thing will make it more easy,” said Paolo—he had dived -deep into the records of his own experience to find precedents, but he -found nothing which could throw any light upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> so strange a case, and -he was now casting about blindly for something to say—“there is one -thing. This lady, this Signorina—is she then—what shall you call it? -disposed to respond to you?”</p> - -<p>Harry’s face grew crimson. He gave a rapid glance back upon all their -intercourse. He seemed to see Rita’s unconscious, tranquil face. Even -when he had made that foolish speech about taking her to England she had -been moved not a hair’s breadth. She had taken it with perfect calm, as -one who had never thought upon the subject might quite well do. “I don’t -think so,” he said, quickly, not looking his friend in the face.</p> - -<p>“Then it is moche more easy,” said Paolo. “There is nothing to do, amico -mio, but to be silent—what you call hold your tongue: and all will be -ovare. When the lady will respond it is different—when she will give -you a glance, a smile, a permission to say what perhaps ought not to be -said.”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing of the kind in the whole business,” said Harry, -bluntly; “you are thinking of your intrigues, and all that Italian -nonsense. English girls don’t understand it any more than I do.”</p> - -<p>“Then the Signorina—is English?” Paolo ven<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>tured here to give vent to a -little laugh. “But you must not be too secure that she understands no -more than you. Perhaps there is in the lady a little Italian blood!”</p> - -<p>“Paolo,” said Harry, “you have the most unreasonable, idiotic, offensive -prejudice against——”</p> - -<p>And here he paused—for had he not been careful all this time to keep in -the background the name of the lady? He stopped, and he looked at Paolo -with curious, anxious, defiant eyes.</p> - -<p>Paolo would have laughed had he dared: but he did not venture to laugh. -It was too serious. “I have no prejudice,” he said. “It may be that I -think a little in Italian, one cannot help one’s thoughts. But then why -will you ask me? If the lady is indifferent where then is the difficulty -of to hold your tongue? But if that is otherwise—listen. The papa, it -is to him one speaks when it is of marriage. Love, that is another -thing. You do not understand, amico,” said Paolo, with a plaintive tone, -“the difference. There is great difference. They are two things -all-together. Marriage,” once more he counted upon his fingers, “that -will mean the papa; love—ah! that will mean the moment, the -opportunity, the response.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>To these last words Harry paid no attention. He scarcely heard them. But -the others seemed to throw a sudden light upon the whole subject. He -rose up again and resumed his promenade about the room, biting his nails -and knitting his brows. “By Jove,” he said, at last, “Paul-o, you’re not -half such a foolish little beggar as you look. That is the thing to do. -I wonder I never thought of it myself. To be sure, that’s the thing to -do.”</p> - -<p>“What is the thing to do?” Paolo asked, bewildered. But his friend made -him no direct answer. After a good deal more of that pacing up and down, -he came back and patted his counsellor on the back so vigorously that he -almost took away Paolo’s breath.</p> - -<p>“That is the very thing,” Harry said. “You are a clever little beggar -after all. I should never have hit it out all by myself; but I see now, -it’s the right thing to do. Not too easy though; I can’t say that I -shall like it a bit; but one can see in a moment that it’s the right -thing to do.”</p> - -<p>“What is the right thing?” Paolo asked again; but he got no reply. Harry -fell a-musing as he sometimes did, letting the little Italian go on with -talk, to which his friend paid no attention;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> and afterwards he walked -with Paolo to his rooms, paying just as little regard to what he said. -It was another clear, starlight night, soft and cool as the nights are -in an Italian spring. There was no chill to freeze the blood; but all -was balmy and soft. He went along the streets with their high houses -reaching almost up to the sky, looking up to the narrow lane of radiant -blue above, all living and sweet with stars. He thought his problem over -again, going step by step over the same way which he had traversed -before—and it seemed to him that he had at last found the true and the -only solution. He could not withdraw himself from the Vice-Consul’s -house without an explanation; that would be impossible; therefore the -only thing to be done was to go to the Vice-Consul himself, and tell him -how the case stood. “I cannot be sure of myself if I go on seeing her -every day; therefore I must give up seeing her every day, and you must -know why.” Probably he would not tell his story so briefly as this; -there would be explanations to give, and many digressions probably from -the main theme; but that in effect would be all that Harry would have to -say; and certainly it was the right thing to do. He took it for granted -that Paolo had suggested it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> though in reality it was an alternative of -a much less satisfactory kind that Paolo had suggested; but all the rest -that he had said vanished from Harry’s practical mind, leaving this one -piece of advice behind, and no more. Paolo was no fool, though his way -of thinking might not be much like an Englishman’s. Englishmen did not -go to the father first, but to the daughter, to know what their chances -were; but for once in a way the other mode was the best. He took a long -walk after he left his friend, traversing all the streets which now he -knew so well, and further still to where the salt air of the sea blew in -his face, and refreshed his soul. He would not trifle with the occasion, -but go at once to-morrow and get it off his mind. So he said to himself. -And he came home past the house from which he was henceforward to be -banished. It was late, and the sitting-rooms were all dark; but Harry -knew that a little light in one window indicated Rita’s room—probably -the faint little <i>veilleuse</i> which watched over her sleep; and that in -another was the lamp by which the Vice-Consul was smoking his last -cigar. He stood and looked piteously at the house. It had been a kind of -home to him, in one way more than his own home had ever been.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> Standing -outside in the night it appeared beautiful to him, as never house had -appeared before. He had not appreciated the <i>bric-à-brac</i>, or known what -to say about the pictures; but now each article of the furniture -suddenly appeared to him in a new light. It was all beautiful; it was -such a place as a palace might be—a house for a queen; and to think -that he had almost lived in it for so long, and that now he was to enter -there no more! Harry was not like the Peri at the gate of Paradise; he -had a still more pathetic, a heart-rending sense of loss. He had been -there yesterday; but he was not to be there again perhaps for ever. Why -should he go away? and yet he must go away; he must keep himself at a -distance from those dear doors. Slowly there gathered in his eyes a -painful dew; it did not fall in tears, which he would have scorned -himself for shedding, but it blurred and magnified all he saw. Yesterday -so much at home, so familiar in the place, to-morrow with no entrance -possible to him any more! and all by no fault of his or anyone’s; by no -levity on <i>her</i> part, or presumption on his; all unawares, no one -thinking of any danger. It seemed to Harry, standing outside there, as -if there was something very hard in such a wayward<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> accident of fate, as -if some malign spirit must have taken pleasure in twisting the threads -wrongly; in making trouble out of the most innocent situations in life. -He had never meant to go further than liking—no one could help going as -far as liking; but the unlucky fellow, without meaning it, had taken the -step farther, and loved; and now all his card-castle of happiness had -tumbled down, and everything was over. There was nothing wrong in it—no -fault in it one way or another: and yet a great many faults would have -produced less confusion and pain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /><br /> -<small>WITH HER FATHER.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span>EXT morning Harry went to the office with an air of resolution about -him which no one could have mistaken. He thought the others looked at -him curiously with investigating eyes, which, indeed, was true enough; -for his predecessor there never could make out how it was that the -stranger had gained so much interest with the Consul, and Paolo, who was -the only other person present, was full of the most anxious wonder and -suspense. But, as it happened, Harry was kept so fully occupied all day -that he could not say a word to the Vice-Consul, and his air of -resolution and sense of being wound up for a great crisis, came to -nothing. But he did not go near the Consulate in the evening. Had things -been in their ordinary course he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> would, in the most natural way, and, -indeed, with a semblance of necessity, have proceeded there to consult -Mr. Bonamy about some matter of business, or to ask directions from him. -But he forbore. He sat in his own rooms all the evening, feeling it -unutterably long, trying to amuse himself with reading, and finding very -little amusement in that somewhat unwonted exercise. He had been -“reading up,” with a great deal of industry and some interest, books -which he had heard discussed in the Vice-Consul’s house, and in this way -had at least procured a good deal of information, the advantage of which -was evident. But Harry had not read for enjoyment, and now that things -had come to this pass, and that he was about to be compelled to give up -the society of the Bonamys, and lose the gratification of pleasing Rita, -it seemed to his practical mind that there was no great reason for -continuing those studies. It was quite likely that he never would live -among such people again, and why should he take so much trouble—trouble -taken with the idea of pleasing them? it was no longer worth his while. -He was driven back to his books indeed by the tedium of the long, -unoccupied evening, for he had no heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> to go out, to be waylaid by -Paolo, and have questions put to him which he would find it very -difficult to answer. But he yawned a great deal, and went to bed very -early, and slept badly in consequence, tossing about for two hours and -hearing the melancholy clocks peal. Next day he was resolved he must -speak. Indeed, it would be indispensable that he should, as it was the -day on which Rita received, and he had never yet been absent from her -drawing-room on that special evening. He had a good opportunity this -time, for the Vice-Consul called for him as soon as he appeared after -his luncheon, and bade him bring certain papers to be examined. “I quite -expected you to have brought them last night,” Mr. Bonamy said. “For two -nights we have not seen you, Oliver. Rita was asking me to-day whether -you were ill. I hope you are not ill. There’s no fever here that I know -of; still it is always well to take care.”</p> - -<p>“I am not ill, Sir,” said Harry, colouring high, and then growing pale; -“but there was another reason. I should like to speak to you for a few -minutes, about myself, if you could spare the time.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I can spare you the time,” said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> Vice-Consul, readily; -“but not now, you know. Come to me again as soon as the office is -closed. Shall we talk your business over here, or in the house?”</p> - -<p>“Here, if you please,” said Harry.</p> - -<p>“Here be it, then. Do you know you excite my curiosity? you look so -serious. But I hope it’s nothing disagreeable, nothing to interfere with -our alliance?” said the Vice-Consul, good-humouredly. He thought he knew -exactly what it was. No doubt the family had found him out, and Harry -was about to be recalled to its bosom. This would give Mr. Bonamy -himself a little regret, and he could understand that to leave a place -where everybody had been kind to him would be a sort of trial to the -young man; but at the same time it was far better for him that he should -be reconciled to his family. So he went through his business with a -little gentle interest, looking forward to the <i>éclaircissement</i>. It was -like the third volume of a novel to the Vice-Consul, and even something -more than that, more than the mere end of a story which had interested -him—for it would also settle various questions in his mind, and prove -if he had been right or not in the instantaneous opinion which he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> -formed about Harry’s concerns. He felt quite sure that he would prove to -have been right. By the time Harry returned to him, after the work of -the afternoon was done, he had made out within himself quite what the -scene was to be. The young man would say: “My father is here;” or “My -brother is here,” as might be; and a hale, hearty old country gentleman, -or a young, ruddy, fresh-coloured youth, like Harry himself, would be -brought in and presented to him, and he would give himself the -gratification of saying, “This is precisely how I expected it would be; -I have been looking for you this past year daily, though I had no notion -who you were.” When Harry came back with the same face of serious -excitement the Consul almost laughed. “Bring them in, bring them in,” he -said, “I have nothing to say against you. You need not be afraid that I -will give you a bad character.” Harry looked at him with that look of -blank astonishment which so often turns into lofty superiority and -disapproval of their seniors’ folly in youthful eyes.</p> - -<p>“Bring—whom in?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Your people, to be sure, my dear Oliver. Come, Oliver, I am not an old -wife; you can’t conceal it from me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I know nothing about my people,” said Harry, hastily; “I have nothing -more to say about them than I have already told you. Things are exactly -as they were between them and me. What I have got to tell you is a very -different sort of thing. But you will see by it, at least, Sir, that I -have no wish to conceal anything from you.”</p> - -<p>“Bless my soul!” said the Vice-Consul, “what’s the matter? Have you got -into any scrape? Have you come in contact with the police? What is the -matter, my boy?”</p> - -<p>“It is nothing outside of this house, Sir,” Harry said, with a grave -smile; “the police have got nothing to say to it. If it is a scrape it -is one I have got myself into, and I must get myself out of it. Anyhow, -it is not likely to hurt anybody but myself,” and here, in spite of all -his precautions, his lip quivered a little. At this moment, the very -worst for such a strong wave of feeling, it suddenly came over him what -a tremendous change it would be, and how much it would hurt himself—if -nobody else.</p> - -<p>“You alarm me,” said Mr. Bonamy, growing grave in his turn. “My dear -fellow, I hope you feel that I take an interest in everything that -con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>cerns you, and that you may safely confide in me——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Sir, I am sure of that,” said Harry; and then he added; “all the -more that it concerns you too.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Bonamy pushed away his chair from the table, opened his eyes wide, -and looked at Harry as if he thought him mad.</p> - -<p>“I can’t come to your house any more, Sir,” said Harry, “that’s what I -wanted to tell you. I’ve enjoyed it very much, and it has done me more -good than anything else in my life—but I ought not to do it, and I -can’t do it any longer. I hope you won’t think I am an ungrateful cur; I -don’t think I am that. But I must give it up, Sir, and I hope you’ll -excuse me for it. I’d rather not say any more.”</p> - -<p>“Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul, greatly disturbed, “what is the meaning -of this? Do you mean there is something in your past—something in your -character and actions that makes you unfit to be my visitor? I have -always trusted in your honour. If it’s that, and your conscience has -been quickened to find it out, of course I have nothing more to say.”</p> - -<p>“It’s not that,” said Harry, bluntly. “I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> not afraid of my -conscience. It says as much to me, I suppose, as to other people; but -you might hear all it says and welcome. There is nothing against my -character here or elsewhere. You know as much harm of me as there is to -know.”</p> - -<p>“I know no harm of you,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, don’t alarm -me. If you find we don’t suit you—though by your manner I should never -have guessed it—why, then, give us up, my fine fellow, and there’s no -more to be said.”</p> - -<p>Harry laughed a somewhat tremulous laugh.</p> - -<p>“I should think you did suit me,” he said. “I don’t believe I was ever -half so happy before.”</p> - -<p>“Then, in the name of wonder, what does this mean?” the Vice-Consul -cried.</p> - -<p>Harry cleared his throat; his lips were beginning to get parched and his -throat was dry.</p> - -<p>“Did you never hear, Sir,” he said, abruptly, “of a fellow falling in -love—with a girl he’d no business to fall in love with?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Bonamy half rose out of his chair, then changed his mind and dropped -back again. His own face became suffused with colour. A sudden -exclamation came from his lips it spite of himself.</p> - -<p>“Is this what has happened to you?” he said.</p> - -<p>“This is what has happened to me,” said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> Harry. “I’m very sorry—nobody -can be more sorry—it shuts me out from a great deal I had got to be -proud of, and happy in. I wish I had made any blunder in the world -rather than this; but it’s done, and I can’t help it. So the only thing -I have got to do now is—— well, either to stay away from the house, or -to go away altogether, as you think best.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose then that at my house you run the risk,” said the -Vice-Consul, with suspicious breaks in his words, either of doubt or -excitement, “of meeting—the young lady?”</p> - -<p>Harry did not say a word; but he looked at him fixedly, with a deep -colour flaming over his face. At this the Vice-Consul gazed at him with -an alarmed expression, gradually catching fire too.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean to say——?” he cried, and then he was silent, and there -ensued a confused and uncomfortable pause.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Sir,” said Harry. He had looked his chief in the face all this -time; but now he avoided the other’s eye, “that is just how it stands. I -told you it was not my fault. I never thought of such a thing. It -never,” he said, putting out his hand to a bundle of papers upon the -table by which he was standing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> and turning them vaguely over and over, -“it never—happened to me before.”</p> - -<p>When the Vice-Consul looked at him standing there, with that look of -half-astonished simplicity on his face, and those artless words on his -lips, it was all he could do to keep in an outburst of laughter. He -thought he had never come in contact with so simple-minded, and candid, -and honourable a fellow. He was startled and alarmed, and made uneasy by -his confession; but yet he had the greatest desire to laugh. Yet why -should he laugh? it was serious enough; his lively mind jumped to the -possibility that his Rita might prefer this young stranger to himself. -It would be an extraordinary choice, he could not but think; but yet, -alas! that was how things often were in this strange world. A girl would -prefer a man she had seen three or four times in a ball-room, to the -father whose very existence she was; and nobody would be surprised at -it; it was the course of nature; it was the way of the world. This idea -chilled and alarmed him to the bottom of his heart; but yet he could -hardly help laughing at Harry and his perturbed air. “I never thought of -such a thing—it never happened before.” The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> Consul was almost too much -amused to take in the seriousness of the event.</p> - -<p>“I presume you have said nothing to her,” he said at last, looking -portentously serious by reason of the inclination to untimely mirth, -which he had to subdue.</p> - -<p>“That is just the thing,” cried Harry, rousing up from his bashful -pre-occupation. “No, I have not spoken—what you would call speaking; -but on Monday night I just dropped a word——”</p> - -<p>“Good Lord!” cried the Vice-Consul. He had no longer any inclination to -laugh; what he was disposed to do was to take the young fellow by the -throat.</p> - -<p>“You can’t be more frightened than I was,” said Harry, ingenuously. “It -was by that I found out. Of course I knew I admired—<i>her</i> more than -anybody I had ever seen; but I had no more notion how far it had -gone—— and then like a fool I began to speak of going home to England, -and how I was sure I could take her all safe if she would go with me. -That was all: I assure you that was all,” cried Harry, discomposed by -Mr. Bonamy’s look and manner. He was alarmed by this look: the -Vice-Consul had risen up, trembling with wrath.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I would like to know,” he cried, “what more you could have said!—what -more could you wish to say? And this is what you call love! To betray my -child; to propose death to her—death! Oh, boy, boy, do you know what -you are doing in your folly and simplicity; beguiling her to her death, -and me to—— Good God! why should I always be such a fool? Why did I -have this fellow here?”</p> - -<p>“You are judging me too harshly, Sir,” cried Harry; “you think it was a -great deal worse than really happened. She never took any notice of it; -it hadn’t the least meaning to her. She asked me did I know -something—some physic I suppose,” Harry said, in a kind of parenthesis, -with disdain—“that would make it safe. That was all she thought of it; -but as for me, as soon as I had said it I came to myself. I’ve had a -dreadful time of it since,” he added once more, with that air of -downright sincerity and solemnity which made the Vice-Consul wish to -smile. “I’ve turned over every kind of plan in my mind. Sometimes I’ve -thought of going right away; but that seemed hard, too, when I had just -got settled here. And at the last the right thing seemed just to come -and tell you. Of course I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> put myself in your hands. I’ll do whatever -you think it proper I should do: give up the office; go away from the -town; anything you please. I don’t want to leave you—or her,” cried -Harry. “God knows! you have been so kind to me!”</p> - -<p>And then the Vice-Consul, hearing the young fellow’s voice falter, and -seeing that he kept his eyes down to conceal the water that had got into -them, felt a little knot in his throat too, and was melted in spite of -himself.</p> - -<p>“Oliver,” he said, “I don’t want to be hard upon you. You said she took -no notice—that is just like her; she is no coquette, my girl; she is -very innocent. I daresay it never occurred to her that you meant -anything.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think it did, Sir,” Harry said eagerly. Of course he had no -clue to Rita’s retirement to her own room, or the amused consideration -she gave to the subject there.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to be hard upon you,” Mr. Bonamy repeated, “if that is the -case. Answer me one more thing, Oliver, and answer it on your honour. -Have you any reason to think (that I should have to put such a -question?) that if you had spoken out more plainly, she—— Heavens! I -can’t put it into words.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“How could I,” cried Harry, almost provoked, “have reason to think -anything about it, when I never even suspected myself? It was that word -that opened my eyes.”</p> - -<p>And then there was another pause. Harry stood turning over and over that -bundle of papers. He looked at them as if he thought they contained some -secret of state. He took them in his hand as if anxious to know how many -ounces they weighed. His face wore a look of the gravest stolid -seriousness. He had now withdrawn from the consideration of his duty, or -what he ought to do, and put it into another person’s hands. He was -freed of the responsibility, and he had only to wait now to see what he -should be told to do.</p> - -<p>Then once more a sense of the humour of the situation intruded upon its -seriousness in the Vice-Consul’s eyes. His anger and alarm were quenched -in a sense of the absolute simplicity and honesty of the culprit, and a -hope that no harm had been done. Mr. Bonamy began to breathe freely -again, even to smile.</p> - -<p>“Sit down,” he said, “and let us talk this over. I don’t blame you, -Oliver. I can understand that you were not seriously to blame; and, if -no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> harm is done—I suppose you will promise me that it shall not occur -again.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Sir,” said Harry, “that is just what I should like to be able to -do; but seeing I was such a fool as to do it once, how can I tell that I -may not be a greater fool again? especially as then I did not know -anything about it, whereas I know all about it now.”</p> - -<p>“That is just the reason,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Now you are on your guard, -and you will know when to be watchful. I can’t give you permission to -make love to—my daughter, Oliver. I suppose you did not expect I -could?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” cried Harry, eagerly; “not in the least. I could not, of -course, even if you did, for I have no money. I could no more marry than -I could fly.”</p> - -<p>“Marry!” cried the Vice-Consul. The young man said the word in the most -matter-of-fact way, but it took away the other’s breath. “Do you know -what you are doing?” he cried; “you are putting a knife to my throat. -Marry! That means that if you could you would break up this home of mine -in which you confess you have been received so kindly. You would rob me -of all I have. You would take from me everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> that makes life -precious. For what, young man, for what? Because you admire a pretty -face! You don’t know any more of her—I am not sure that you are able to -appreciate any more of her. But she is everything in the world—she is -all that makes life worth living—to me.”</p> - -<p>Harry threw down the bundle of papers and looked across the table with -the intensest astonishment. “Do you mean,” he said, “that you don’t -intend her ever to be married at all? Is nobody to have the chance? Is -she always to be kept up in one place, and never to settle, nor have her -own choice and her own life?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Bonamy felt as if he were being stoned—one solid, heavy fact tossed -at him after another; and looked at his questioner with a sort of gasp -between the blows. He faltered after a while, “She is very young. She -has everything that her heart can desire. Why should she not be content, -at least for years to come, in her father’s house?”</p> - -<p>“I always understood, Sir,” said Harry, with his usual -straightforwardness, “that the right thing for girls was to marry when -they were young, and that parents were supposed to wish it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“To scheme for it, perhaps?” said Mr. Bonamy, furiously, “and put out -all sorts of snares to catch young fellows like you—eh? To lay traps -for you, and lead you on, and give you encouragement and opportunity, -and so forth? Perhaps you think that’s what I’ve been doing—eh? God -forgive me,” he said, “in my day I’ve said that sort of thing, and -believed it myself; I’ve sneered and scoffed like the rest—and now I’ve -got my punishment. You think there is nothing so fine for a girl as to -get married—eh?”</p> - -<p>Harry was struck with consternation by this attack; but yet, feeling -that he had right on his side, he stood his ground. “I am not saying -anything about <i>you</i>, Sir,” he said, “but surely it is thought the best -thing that could happen. I’ve always heard it. Fathers and mothers, you -know, Sir, don’t generally live as long as their children—at least, -that is what is supposed—and they like to see their daughters settled, -don’t they, before they die?”</p> - -<p>This was what the French would call a brutal speech—for, in the first -place, it was true; and then Mr. Bonamy was at an age which seemed old -to Harry, but rather young than otherwise to himself, and he was not at -all pleased to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> it taken for granted that he must shortly be going -to die. Yes, of course Rita would outlive him, would live long, he -hoped, after him; but still the idea that there was any need to marry -her off in haste, lest he might die and leave her before she -was—settled, was most repugnant to him; it went to his heart, wounding -him with a possibility which he had no desire to think of; and it made -him hot and angry, as if it had been a personal insult. No one likes to -be told that he has come to a period of life at which it is more likely -than otherwise that he will shortly die, and that it is very necessary -to take precautions against that event. It was all he could do to keep -from bursting out upon Harry, crushing him with a bitter rejoinder. He -to address his benefactor thus! He to speak in this tone to the man who -had received him when nobody else would, who had lifted him out of all -the difficulties of a stranger, and opened not only his office, which -gave him bread, but his house, which gave him friends, and position, and -everything a young man could wish for! These words were rushing to Mr. -Bonamy’s lips, when fortunately a sense of his personal dignity, and of -the impropriety of any such demonstration, came in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> and stopped him. -Harry’s speech, after all, was good common sense, just the sort of thing -that everybody says; the world was on that side of the question. Perhaps -prudence and the foresight which love itself ought to possess was on -that side too. So he was silent, repressing the first instinct of reply. -When he was able to do it, he answered with as much self-possession as -he could muster.</p> - -<p>“I admire your prudence, Mr. Oliver. I hope you will always see your own -duties with the same clearness which you display about those of others; -and I have no doubt you are quite right; but it is a question which I -don’t care to discuss. Let me say, before we finish this talk, that I -think you have behaved very honourably, and as a gentleman should; and I -quite accept your reason for coming to my house much less frequently. I -will make your excuses to my daughter; and nothing that has passed need -make any difference in our official relations,” he added, looking up -with a smile that was sharp and cold, not like his usual sunshine, “in -that respect there is no possible reason why everything should not go on -as before.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, Sir,” said Harry, getting up with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> some confusion. The -conversation had been going on so long, and so much less indignation -than he expected had been in the Vice-Consul’s air at the beginning, -that this sudden sentence confounded him. He was quite ready, when he -began, to be taken at his word; but somehow he was not now so ready; the -bitterness had seemed to be past, and he had hoped that the indulgent -and fatherly friend before him would have found some way by which he -should still be permitted to come and go. But now all at once Harry -found himself, in his own words, “shut up,” and had nothing to do but to -stumble to his feet as quickly as he could, and take himself off, much -subdued and astonished, to his desk in the outer office—where he gave -his mind to his business, not too clearly, but with as much devotion as -was practicable, for the rest of the day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /><br /> -<small>RITA’S OPINION.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HESE two men, however, though they were disposed to think themselves -the chief, or, indeed, only persons concerned, were by no means the -masters of the situation, as they supposed. Rita took Harry’s absence -from her drawing-room quite lightly at first, so lightly that her -father’s mind was entirely relieved. He had been afraid that her -astonishment, if nothing else, would have been great, and that she would -have asked him a hundred questions—questions which it might have given -him some trouble to answer. But she took it quite quietly, and said -nothing about it for a week or two, till the Vice-Consul was of opinion -that all danger was passed. About this time, however, Rita, by one of -those<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> accidents which occur perversely to heighten the embarrassment of -every domestic crisis, met Harry suddenly on one of her walks, coming -upon him round a corner without any warning to either party. Her usual -attendant, Benedetta, was with the young lady, who looked up brightly -with surprise and pleasure, and held out her hand.</p> - -<p>“What has become of you all this time?” she said, in her kind, soft -voice.</p> - -<p>On Harry, for his part, the effect of so suddenly coming in sight of -her, and of her frank accost, was too remarkable to escape Rita’s quick -eye. He fell backward a step, swerved from his course, gave a glance -round him, as if in search of some way of escape, then, seeing none, -took her offered hand gingerly, just touched and dropped it, his face -flushing crimson, his voice faltering.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am very well, thank you,” was the answer he made; and then stood -and stared at her for a moment, and, without replying to any of her -questions, went on again confusedly, leaving her standing still gazing -after him in a state of mingled dismay and consternation.</p> - -<p>“What can have happened to him?” Rita said to herself, unconsciously -aloud: and “I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> the gentleman must be mad,” said tranquilly the -good Benedetta, who thought the English were all a little insane, and -that it was nothing much out of the way. But that evening when dinner -was over it was the Vice-Consul’s turn to be undeceived.</p> - -<p>“Papa,” said Rita, suddenly (she had let him have his dinner first, -which showed consideration), “what is the matter with Mr. Oliver?”</p> - -<p>The Vice-Consul was like a ship at sea, into whose innocent hulk a -sudden broadside is poured without any sort of warning; he dipped his -sails, so to speak, all his timbers thrilled and shivered. He had not -been in the least prepared for any such assault.</p> - -<p>“Oliver?” he said, trying to put on an exaggerated look of innocence, -“Oliver? what’s the matter with him? What should be the matter with him? -He is all right for anything I know.”</p> - -<p>“He is not all right,” said Rita; “he has not been here for a fortnight, -he who used to come almost every night; and you should have seen him -when I met him to-day; I thought he would have run away. He tried it, I -declare. He looked all round to see if he could not make his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> escape, -and when I cried out, ‘What has become of you?’ he said, ‘Very well, -thank you!’ Was there ever anything so absurd? I like him for that, he -is so English, and so absurd.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see anything absurd about it,” said the Vice-Consul, with a -very grave countenance.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you, papa? you are growing dull, you have been very dull for some -time back. Since Mr. Oliver ran away! Perhaps it is because of that. -Perhaps it is the same thing that has affected you both.”</p> - -<p>“You pay me a high compliment,” said Mr. Bonamy, nettled, “to think that -my dulness, as you are pleased to call it, should result from the -withdrawal of Oliver; he is not such a shining light.”</p> - -<p>“No, he is not a shining light,” said Rita, “he is perhaps just a little -dull himself; that is why I like him. He never tries to say clever -things, he is never a bit brilliant, he never even pretends to -understand when he doesn’t understand, but looks at you with nice, -round, wide-open, surprised sort of eyes. That is just what I like him -for. He is always himself.”</p> - -<p>To this the Vice-Consul made no reply, but, hoping to change the -conversation, said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> “By the way, I’ve got you that book you were -talking so much about; nobody had it here, so I sent to Paris——”</p> - -<p>“That was very good of you, papa; but I can’t let you run off like that. -Let us finish one subject before we begin another. What is the matter -with Mr. Oliver? Why did he come every night, and then leave off coming -all at once?”</p> - -<p>“What a fool I was to think I was going to be let off so easily!” Mr. -Bonamy breathed to himself. “My dear Rita,” he said, “I don’t see why -you should be so anxious about Oliver. It was a mistake having him here -so much at the first.”</p> - -<p>“Why was it a mistake? you never thought it was a mistake till now. What -has happened? I am more and more puzzled with every word you say. Papa!” -cried Rita, stamping her little foot on the floor, “don’t trifle with -me, for I am determined to find it out.”</p> - -<p>“Then you must just find it out your own way,” cried the Vice-Consul, -angry with the anger of impotence; for he knew very well he could not -resist her, and that it was only a matter of minutes how long she would -take to find the necessary clue.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do you mean to say you will not tell me?” cried Rita, with wondering, -wide-open eyes.</p> - -<p>“My dear child,” said the unfortunate Vice-Consul, “you are making it of -far too much importance. What does it matter about this young fellow one -way or the other? He came, he has gone; we ought not, perhaps, to have -given him so readily the run of the house.”</p> - -<p>“Has anything—wrong—been found out about him, papa?”</p> - -<p>“Bless my soul, no! nothing wrong; on the contrary!” cried poor Mr. -Bonamy; “for I won’t take away a man’s character behind his back—he has -behaved like a gentleman, quite like a gentleman; about that there is -not a word to say.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Rita, “he would behave like a gentleman, for he is a -gentleman; but on what pretext, then, have you banished him from the -house?”</p> - -<p>“Rita,” cried her father, “I wish you would not talk of things you don’t -understand! Am I the sort of man to banish a young fellow from my house? -If you <i>will</i> know, it was he that did it himself.”</p> - -<p>Rita opened her eyes wider than ever. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> laughed, though a little -angry colour came to her face.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it was he, then, who disapproved of us?” she said.</p> - -<p>What was the Vice-Consul to do?</p> - -<p>“That is nonsense,” said he, “he neither disapproved of us, nor did I -disapprove of him; but there might be other reasons. We thought, both of -us, both he and I, that it was as well—he should not come—so -often—for a time, at least.”</p> - -<p>“So often? but he never comes at all,” cried the inquisitive girl, “and -when I met him he wanted to run away. Don’t you see all this is absurd, -papa? If you want me to believe you, tell me the right reason. I will -not be satisfied till you tell me the right reason. Do you think I can -be taken in with pretences of that sort?”</p> - -<p>“Rita, you annoy me very much, you distress me. I don’t know why you -should drive me into a corner like this,” the Vice-Consul said -piteously.</p> - -<p>“But I want to drive you into a corner, I must drive you into a corner; -for I insist now upon knowing what it is. I might have let it pass -before, but now I insist upon it, you must tell me, papa.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The poor man gave a deep sigh.</p> - -<p>“You take a very unfair advantage,” he said; “you compel me to betray -poor Oliver and to distress myself. And I warn you that it will make you -blush, that you will feel very uncomfortable.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind blushing,” Rita said; and as she spoke a sudden suffusion -of heat and colour came all over her. She blushed from the crown of her -head to the soles of her feet. It was a strange sensation, but it was -not altogether disagreeable. The girl had as little idea of any painful -or shameful occasion for blushing as if she had been a baby; and she met -the father’s eyes quite steadily all the same.</p> - -<p>“I never saw a creature so pertinacious,” said poor Mr. Bonamy. “Well, -then, if you must know. It is because of you that young Oliver is not -coming here any more.”</p> - -<p>“Because of me!” She was too much astonished to blush now, and then she -had already had her blush out.</p> - -<p>“Just because of you. He has been so silly as to fall in love with you, -and feeling that it would be dishonourable to me to continue to come -here, this being the case, he has explained it all and withdrawn. There -is now the short and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> the long of it, Rita. You have no right to say a -word against poor Oliver. He has paid you, as people say, the highest -compliment a man can pay a woman, and he has acted in the most -honourable way to me; feeling that he cannot be quite sure of not -betraying himself if he continues to come, he has ceased to come. He -would have left the place altogether if I had asked such a sacrifice of -him. He has behaved in the most gentlemanly, honourable way. He tells me -he did say something, but he did not know whether you understood it or -not.”</p> - -<p>Rita was struck dumb. She sat and gazed at her father silently while he -spoke, too curious and strongly interested even to be abashed by this -strange news. She blushed no more. Having paid that one tribute of -startled maidenliness to the new revelation, she was too much impressed -and overwhelmed by it for any lighter feeling. She sat in an attitude of -the most absorbed attention, her eyes fixed upon her father’s face, her -lips a little apart, the breath coming quickly. She was astonished, yet -not so much astonished as overawed, penetrated by the news. When her -father ceased speaking, she continued the same rapt aspect of attention. -He thought she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> have been shame-faced, blushing, shy of it, unable -to look him in the face; but he was not prepared for this curious, -absorbed interest. By and by she repeated to herself softly, “So silly -as to fall <i>in</i>—<i>love</i>:—with me—would have left the place -altogether.” Then she made a pause, and, putting her hands softly -together, said, with a sigh of satisfaction at having found out one -problem: “Then that was what he meant!”</p> - -<p>“What was what he meant? He told me you took no notice; he thought you -hadn’t understood what he said.”</p> - -<p>“I did not understand it,” said Rita, softly, “I only wondered. It was -about going to England——”</p> - -<p>“Rita, Rita! you would not, for a new lover, a man you scarcely know, a -being quite untried—you would not break my heart and go and risk your -life—your life that is above all things precious to me?”</p> - -<p>Rita scarcely seemed to hear this interpolation—this interruption of -her thoughts.</p> - -<p>“That there would be no danger, he said, and he would take care—he -would take care—that was not much; but I did wonder. I will tell you -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> truth, papa. I had a great anxiety to know what he meant.”</p> - -<p>“Young idiot!” her father said, with hotly-rising wrath, “he meant -nothing—nothing, my love! only a brag that he could do more, and know -better—a boy, an uninstructed fool—than those who have watched over -you all your life.”</p> - -<p>Even this made no impression upon the girl. “It is curious,” she said, -still to herself, “very curious—quite different from—the other way. I -suppose this is the English way? Benedetta always says the English are -half mad. I suppose instead of asking about the <i>dot</i>, and that kind of -thing, you know, papa—I suppose this is the English way?”</p> - -<p>“It is the foolish way,” cried the father. “Come, it is nothing to you, -Rita. You don’t mean to say—no, no, my darling; I know better—you -don’t mean to make me believe that you, so clever as you are, and -knowing so much, could think twice about any notion that came into the -noddle of such an empty-headed young man.”</p> - -<p>“Is he empty-headed?” said Rita, reflectively. “He does not know much, -that is quite true; he is not a bit clever; but I think it is a little -unjust<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> to call him empty-headed. He was always just himself; he never -pretended to anything else. Sometimes he understood—very often he -didn’t; but he never pretended, papa. Don’t you think it is a little -hard upon him?” she said, turning round upon her father suddenly, and -fixing him with her large, serious, impartial eyes. “Don’t you think it -is hard to take advantage of what he has said himself, and turn him out -like this?”</p> - -<p>“I have not turned him out. Rita, this is mere folly. I will not have -you led away by your feelings. If any man were to kill me, I believe you -would say he didn’t mean it, poor fellow, it would be hard upon him to -hang him. Come, child, let us be done with this.”</p> - -<p>“But, papa,” said Rita, “there is no evidence against him but his own -confession. I have often heard you say that one should not take -advantage of that. Kill you—who wants to kill you? There could not be a -more different question. I am not led away by my feelings. I have no -feelings but right and justice. I don’t think you ought to have taken -that advantage of him. It must be very hard upon him, papa, to shut him -out. Think! he will have nowhere else to go to. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> dare say he spends -his evenings in the cafés. He can’t know what to do with himself at -nights.”</p> - -<p>“As if I had anything to do with his entertainment in the evening! I -wish to heaven he had never set foot within my house!”</p> - -<p>“Ah! but that is past praying for. I don’t see why you should wish such -a thing; but still, if you do wish it, it is a pity, for it is too late. -He <i>has</i> set foot within your house, and we have a responsibility about -him. We have a responsibility,” said Rita, very gravely shaking her -head. “He is young, and he is very simple-minded, and he might, as you -are always saying, take a wrong turn; and then whose fault would it be?”</p> - -<p>“Not mine,” cried the persecuted man, “certainly not mine—that I’ll -swear to. Am I the fellow’s keeper? Rita, for heaven’s sake be done with -all that nonsense. If you can talk of nothing more sensible, you had -much better go to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Rita, calmly, going on with her argument, “you are his -guardian in a kind of way, papa. It was you that took him up first. You -did it of your own free will, nobody persuaded you. You settled him -here, and you opened your doors to him, and said, Come on Sunday, come -as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> often as you please. Do you think you are justified in casting him -away now, as if it was of no importance? never thinking where he will go -instead, or if he has anywhere else to go to? Do you think you are -justified? for no other reason than that you think he might perhaps do -or say something you would not like? I do not.”</p> - -<p>“Then you think, I suppose, that I ought to have him back and beg his -pardon, and tell him he is quite free to make love to my daughter if he -likes? Bless my soul! why should I interfere with such a pretty -amusement? That’s what you think. Rita, don’t sit there, my dear, -talking nonsense: say no more about this young fool, but go to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Papa, I am sorry to see you are so deaf to sound argument,” said Rita, -with judicial composure; “you always bring in the personal question, as -if that had anything to do with it. On the face of it, to deprive a -stranger of the benefits you have been heaping upon him, and leave him -in a moment to his own resources, all because you are afraid of a -distant and unlikely thing he thinks he wants to do, is dreadfully -unjustifiable; my dear papa,” said Rita, looking down from the heights -of youthful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> superiority, “I never expected to find you inaccessible to -reason, especially on such an important point as this.”</p> - -<p>“Inaccessible to fiddlesticks,” the Vice-Consul said; but he was -entirely shaken in his conviction of having done what was right and -kind, both to one party and the other. He got up and walked about the -room. He was a man who wanted moral support; he wanted to be approved -of, and to feel that the opinion of those around him went with his. And -especially he had learned to prop himself up by Rita’s opinion. He was -always uneasy when she differed from him. Even in this matter, which -concerned herself, and in which her judgment might justly be doubted, he -was not comfortable. He was unfortunately too accessible to reason, so -that nothing could be more unjust than this reproach. “Go to bed, my -love; go to bed,” he said, faintly. “It is getting very late; another -time we can talk of this.”</p> - -<p>“Then do you think, papa,” said Rita, still magisterial, “that it is -right to postpone a matter which concerns other people’s comfort to -another time?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t worry me to death,” said Mr. Bonamy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> stretching out his hands -with a half-despairing appeal. “I never thought I was going to be led -into such a discussion—don’t worry me to death!”</p> - -<p>But she showed no signs of mercy, and there is no telling what might -have happened to Her Majesty’s humble representative had he not been -called away at this moment to receive a messenger with despatches from -the Consulate-General and important instructions. Mr. Bonamy hurried -away with a sigh of thankfulness; never was culprit suddenly delivered -from the bar more glad of his escape. He knew, indeed, that it was only -for a time: but yet even for a time it was well to get out of her hands. -At least he could collect materials for his defence.</p> - -<p>Rita, for her part, after sitting for some time waiting for her father’s -return, and sharpening up various arguments for his complete -discomfiture, got tired, and made up her mind to take his advice and go -to bed. But she had a great deal too much to think about to have any -desire to go to sleep. When she had sent Benedetta away she sat by her -window in her white dressing-gown, with her hair about her shoulders, a -romantic little figure, and felt a little like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> Juliet. She had never -felt like Juliet before. She had, even with the flippancy of her age, -been disposed to think of Juliet as of a very forward and bold young -woman. People who have been accustomed to hear of marriage as a matter -of convenience, so much <i>dot</i>, so many advantages, and who have even -been negotiated for in this way, are apt to think but poorly of that -ideal impersonation of youthful passion. But now that Romeo had appeared -on the scene, Rita, at the window, thought upon Juliet with a little -secret wonder, and awe, and pleasure. Romeo—well, there is no evidence -that Romeo was clever. He was only one of the gallants of the period, -one of the swash-bucklers who sometimes talk just as badly as their -kind, though often they forget themselves and talk Shakespeare. There -was nothing extraordinary about him till love and the poet got hold of -him, and put divine words into his mouth. Very likely that gay Mercutio -was the cleverest of the two. Sitting thus at her window, Rita all at -once was sensible of a figure on the pavement looking up at the house -from the opposite side of the street. There was nothing but a little -night-light burning on a table in the corner, nothing to betray<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> her -figure where she sat. And nothing could be more common-place and absurd -than that Harry should come there and stare at the windows. He was not -by any means in the habit of doing so; but yet when he was out, taking -his forlorn walk, he would allow himself to take that turn through the -street in which the Consulate was, and fix a wistful eye upon it for a -moment. When Rita saw him she darted back with a movement of fright and -wonder, and mirth and shyness, all in one; and sat out of sight for a -few moments, panting, blushing, with the same overwhelming flush of -sudden warmth which had come over her for the first time when her father -spoke to her. Then, in the dark and the silence, she gave vent to a -little low laugh, at which she was frightened when she heard it, and -became suddenly as solemn and serious as an old picture. Then she -returned shyly to the corner of the window, peeping, though she ought to -have known that it was impossible he could see her. The figure opposite -was in the act of passing on; it gave a long look back as it went slowly -away, lingering as if reluctant to be out of her neighbourhood. Rita -drew back this time with a kind of awe. She knew he would have thought -no more of climbing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> the garden wall, however high it had been—if there -had been a garden wall and a balcony, and she out upon it discoursing to -the moon—than Romeo did. “But there is the difference,” Rita said to -herself; “he may be in love with me, but I am not in love with him. I -would never stand out there and sigh Romeo, Romeo. No,” she went on, -with a little shriek of a laugh, “not Romeo. Oh, Isaac, Isaac, wherefore -art thou Isaac? That is too ridiculous; it is all too ridiculous. I -don’t wonder at what Benedetta says, that the English are half-mad.”</p> - -<p>And then she sat a long time in the dark, and thought, and thought. It -was all very new and very strange. It roused her lively faculties with -the pleasure of a novel sensation. She had taken her proposals of -marriage with sedate contempt, and announced authoritatively to her -father on each occasion that she had no intention of ever marrying, and -that she liked him much better than any other man in the world, an -assurance which the poor Vice-Consul took great comfort in, though it -was not possible that any man in his senses could accept it as a matter -of serious faith. But now Rita could not deny to herself that this -strange new bewildering sensation was a pleasant one. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> former -suitors would no doubt have gladly adopted it had it been thought that -such an easy mode of love-making would have been permitted; but in their -cases it would not have moved the foolish girl. To see somebody standing -silent on the other side of the street, doing nothing to call her -attention, not wishing to be noticed, doing it only for a little comfort -to himself, was entirely different. That was the English way, she -thought with awe. To be able to give love up for the sake of honour, and -yet to have it so much at heart as to be driven to come and look at the -house in which the beloved object lived, standing about alone in a cold -night—Rita’s whole heart was penetrated by the sincerity, the modesty, -the self-restraint, yet self-abandonment, which were English, only -English, nothing else. It was not in the least a cold night: Harry -outside felt it to be warm and genial: but there was a cool little -night-breeze lifting the curtains, and she strove to call it cold to -heighten the effect. This was how the Vice-Consul had mismanaged -matters. He was not a happy man as he read his despatches; but he had no -idea of the mischief which was going on under cover of the night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /><br /> -<small>A LOVER’S ORDEAL.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">R</span>ITA said nothing more to her father on this subject for a day or two, -and the poor man, deceived once more, began to believe that it had made -little impression upon her, and was to be allowed to pass as of no -particular importance. He had even begun to congratulate himself on the -beneficial effects of his system of training, and the knowledge of the -world which her early initiation into life had given her. “Had I brought -Rita up as most girls are brought up,” he said to himself; “had she been -fresh from a convent, for instance, like some of her friends, or shut up -indoors as Italian girls are, her head would have been turned by the -first mention of a lover. But she has seen a great deal,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> though she is -so young. In our position she could not help seeing a great deal. She -knows how to discriminate, and can judge what is what. What a good thing -that I did not follow the advice of all these ladies, but was bold -enough to trust to my girl’s innocence and bring her up my own way!” -Thus artlessly did the Vice-Consul console himself. And his mind was a -great deal easier; for before he was always nervous lest she should -question him about Harry, and afraid of betraying himself, even afraid -of letting Rita perceive that there was something to betray. Now that he -had made a clean breast and got it over, his mind was relieved, and he -felt that he could carry his head as high as usual, and need not be -afraid to look any girl in the face. For the first day he rejoiced with -trembling, but after that had passed began to feel that he had really -secured his footing, and might take comfort that the danger was over. -Poor Vice-Consul! He had but just allowed this sensation of pleasure to -enter his mind when Rita, looking up at him suddenly from a book in -which she had all the air of being completely absorbed, addressed him -suddenly as follows—</p> - -<p>“Papa! I have been thinking over what you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> told me the other day—What -is the matter?” she added, interrupting herself.</p> - -<p>“Nothing, nothing,” said poor Mr. Bonamy, faintly. He had been lying -back in a very comfortable chair, whiffing gently at intervals a mild -cigarette, and giving himself up to the comfort, the ease of being done -with a subject in which he had foreseen trouble. When his daughter began -to speak, a presentiment of danger awoke in him, and he started up in -his chair when she had said these words. “Nothing, nothing,” he -repeated, letting himself drop again, but alas, with what different -feelings; with the languor of a conflict foreseen, in which he knew he -should be worsted. “What have you been thinking about, Rita?”</p> - -<p>“About what you told me the other day. Of course it was not just an -ordinary thing that one could think nothing more about. Poor Mr. Oliver! -I think he has been badly treated. I want you to tell him just to come -as usual. He must be on his guard, you know; but in any case he would be -on his guard after speaking to you. He must not suppose that I know -anything about it.”</p> - -<p>“But, my dear,” said the Vice-Consul, with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> troubled face, “I don’t -think that would do at all; he would think that he had my permission -to—to pay you his addresses, as people used to say?”</p> - -<p>“What are addresses?” said Rita, with much appearance of innocence. “You -must tell him, of course, that there is to be nothing of that kind; but -only just that he is to come as before. I don’t see that it need do him -any harm—I mean any further harm,” said the girl, correcting herself. -She spoke with unusual airiness and carelessness, so lightly indeed that -her indifference had the aspect of being somewhat studied.</p> - -<p>“Him—harm! that was not the question,” the perplexed father said.</p> - -<p>“I hope you don’t mean to infer that it would do <i>me</i> any harm?” said -Rita, turning upon him with a smile of superb disdain. She even laughed -a little at the folly of the idea, opening and shutting a fan which she -held in her hand. “That would be too ridiculous—too ridiculous,” she -said.</p> - -<p>“But, my dear child, you are young and inexperienced, and—”</p> - -<p>“Don’t insult me, please, papa,” she said, fanning herself. If she had -been fifty she could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> not have looked more superior to any such -temptation. “And, on the other hand,” she added, “I don’t see why poor -Mr. Oliver should be punished, positively punished for liking me. It is -not a sin to like me. Of course he must learn to keep it to himself; it -will be a good lesson in self-control—which everybody is the better -for,” said this young oracle, “and especially, as I have always heard, -young men.”</p> - -<p>This wisdom took away the Vice-Consul’s breath. “That is very true:” he -said “but I am not at all sure that this is a safe way of teaching it. I -think, if it is the same to you, Rita—”</p> - -<p>“But it is not the same to me,” she cried, impatiently. “If you will not -set poor Mr. Oliver right and do him justice, I think I will go and pay -that visit my aunt Ersilia always wants me to make her. You said -yourself I must go one day or other. I will go now.”</p> - -<p>Now if there was one thing more than another which Mr. Bonamy was afraid -of, it was this visit to her aunt Ersilia, her mother’s Italian sister, -with which she threatened him from time to time. He said hurriedly, “I -don’t think this is a good time for going further south, Rita. Of -course, if you wish it so much, I will gladly remove the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> embargo on -poor Oliver, who is a very good, honest sort of fellow; but I can’t have -him tormented, poor boy—and you must promise to be very distant with -him, which is the kindest thing you can do.”</p> - -<p>“But not too distant, papa,” said Rita; “for I think it a great deal -better that he should suppose I do not know. Far better. I will behave -to him just as usual. I will withdraw gradually, bit by bit, that he may -not feel too much difference. Indeed, unless he is different to me, I -don’t see why I should be different to him. Of course he will be on his -guard. You see he <i>knows now</i>. Naturally he will be more careful. He -will understand that if you let him come back he is upon his honour. So, -on the whole, I will make very little difference. I think it is far -better that everything should have the look of being just the same as -before.”</p> - -<p>With this Mr. Bonamy was obliged to be satisfied. He had known very well -when the discussion began that Rita’s will, whatever it might be, was -the thing that would be done. He had in his own mind a great many -troubled reflections, considering how he was to do it, so as not to -excite false hopes or vain expectations in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> young man’s mind; but it -was, from the moment when she declared her sovereign will, a foregone -conclusion. He had not resolved the question how it was to be done, up -to the time he went into his office in the morning, and then thought it -best to leave it to chance and the inspiration of the moment. When he -sent for Harry to speak with him he had still but a very faint idea what -to say. The young man came in looking somewhat dull and depressed, as he -did always now, and no longer expectant of anything better, as he had -been at the first. It was a moment of leisure, and the Vice-Consul had -the air of a man with something disagreeable rather than something -pleasant to say. His look was artificial, and the smile which adorned -his face was forced and uncomfortable.</p> - -<p>“Come in, Oliver, come in,” he said, with an air of affected geniality. -Harry thought he was going to receive his dismissal; he did not think -that anything less could give his kind and friendly patron an aspect so -little natural. “Sit down,” said the Vice-Consul, “I have something to -say before business begins this afternoon. Oliver, I have been going -through quite a passage of arms on your account.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“On my account?” said Harry, feeling as if his heart stopped beating; he -thought within himself, that this passage of arms must have been with -some of the authorities of the F. O., who perhaps had been stirred up to -ask what a stranger, without recommendations, was doing there. It seemed -to him that the next thing which would be said must be, “I have no -further occasion for your services,” and braced himself for these words.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be frightened; yes, you look frightened,” said Mr. Bonamy, still -with that false geniality, “but no harm has come of it. You met—my -daughter—the other day.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.” Harry’s heart re-commenced beating, and went so fast that it -almost choked him. “It was an accident, Sir; I did not see Miss Bonamy -till I was close upon her, I could not escape.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she told me. And she asked what had become of you, and you -answered ‘Very well, thank you!’ You will allow that was strange. No -doubt she had been much puzzled by your disappearance before, and she -assailed me directly what was the meaning of it? I had to say all sorts -of things, that you were too busy to come, that you were otherwise -engaged, and I don’t know what; but the short and the long of it is,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> -Oliver, that, if you want to keep her from knowing all about it, you -must begin to come back again. Things cannot go on as they are now -without arousing her suspicions. This is her night, you know; you must -look in for an hour. Of course I don’t want to enter into explanations -with her,” said the Vice-Consul, becoming more at ease now he had made -out his statement, and done it, he thought with some complacence, very -cleverly. “You must really, by way of supporting what I have been -obliged to say, look in to-night.”</p> - -<p>Harry’s heart was making up tremendously now for its momentary pause. He -felt as if it must be audible all over the house. A flush of warmth went -over him. He spoke with little breaks in his voice, so much excited and -disturbed was he.</p> - -<p>“If you—have no objections, Sir. It cannot be but—a favour to me.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a good fellow,” cried the Vice-Consul relieved. “I was afraid -you would tell me it was too painful, and leave me in the lurch.”</p> - -<p>“If I did that, Sir,” said Harry, “I should be a worthless creature -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>indeed, however much it might cost me; but this—this—— If you have -no objections, Sir—you can’t have any doubt that I——”</p> - -<p>Here he stopped, not knowing what to say more.</p> - -<p>“You must understand, Oliver,” said Mr. Bonamy, gravely, “that if I have -no objections it is because I don’t want to enter into explanations with -Rita; and then I have missed you, I would never deny that. But you must -not suppose, because of this, that I mean you, you know, to depart from -our—bargain, or to do anything to change the position. In short, I -don’t intend, Oliver, that you should take advantage of the change -to—in short, to——”</p> - -<p>This was not very explanatory, but Harry hastened to reply as if it had -been the clearest statement in the world.</p> - -<p>“You may be sure I will take no advantage of the change,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Well, that is just what I expected from you,” said the Vice-Consul, -falling into his natural tone; “but, my dear fellow,” he added, with a -little alarm, “I must be sure that you can depend upon yourself. You -told me you were afraid you would betray your feelings if you continued -to come; you told me even that you had done so, or almost done so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>——”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Sir,” cried Harry, “that was when I found myself out! I know -exactly all about it now, and I am on my guard.”</p> - -<p>“Bless me,” said the Vice-Consul, “that is exactly what——” here he -stopped short with the guiltiest look. He was just about to say—what -Rita said.</p> - -<p>“You need not have any fear on my account,” said Harry: and then he -paused a little, and added with feeling, “and I am proud that you have -confidence in me. I will do nothing to shake it; you may be sure of -that. I should be a poor creature indeed if my heart did not respond to -such trust.”</p> - -<p>This was a very fine speech for Harry. He was carried altogether beyond -himself by the emergency. These last lonely evenings had been wonderful -teachers for him. He had learned to read, he had learned to understand. -He had even learned many things more than reading and understanding in -these days of solitude. The thought of going back to her, to that little -world in which she reigned, was delightful to him, but he wondered what -change there would be in it to balance the strange change in his own -breast. It seemed to him that he was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> new man, with deeper feelings -and an expanded mind. And she? Would she just be the same, and all the -things and people round her? Harry did not want her to be the least -different. He thought she was perfect, the most wonderful of all beings; -but he felt himself so much altered that he was excited by the thought -that she might be changed too. He went away from his audience not -knowing whether he walked on solid earth or air. Certainly he would not -take advantage; unquestionably he would be upright and honest, and bind -himself as with ropes rather than betray his kind friend’s confidence; -but with all this he was very much excited, and a glow of warmth and -hopefulness began to circulate in his veins. The new concession meant no -change in the circumstances; this the Vice-Consul had been anxious to -impress upon him; and he was equally anxious to assent, to assure Rita’s -father on the other hand that he expected nothing, scarcely desired -anything except this trust in him. But, nevertheless, it would be -impossible to deny that a something of hope, a trembling yet happy -expectation, had come into his heart.</p> - -<p>How carefully he dressed himself that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> night! Never in all his life had -he made so careful a toilette before. And Paolo, having heard what had -happened (which Harry, reticent as he was, could not keep from him), was -excited too, and came and sat by him while he dressed, and wanted to -help him, as if they had been two girls. Paolo ran out and bought him a -bouquet for his button-hole. He brought in a fresh bottle of -eau-de-Cologne. He was very anxious to lend him something to wear—his -studs, which were little cameos set in gold, or a ring, with a doubtful -gem in it, of which he was very proud, thinking it a genuine antique. -“It is not brilliant like a diamond,” said Paolo, “but it is art, which -is more precious, and pleases much to the Signorina. Take it, amico mio, -you have no ring, which is an absence that is felt; and the studs, that -will make your appearance so much more perfect—what you call finished.” -Harry rejected these aids to the effectiveness of his dress, but he took -great pains about his tie, and rebrushed his coat himself, and gave -particular attention to the arrangement of his hair. He said to himself, -as he walked along in the summer dusk, that all this was very foolish, -that he was not on his promotion, when it might have been wise to make -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> best of all his advantages, that he was going only because he was -nobody, because the Vice-Consul was not afraid of him, and thought it -wiser to run the risk of him than to disturb Rita’s mind about any such -petty suitor. It was very much like giving him the crumbs from the -table, but he was willing to accept these, or anything. He went into the -lighted room with his heart beating. Several of the ladies who were -<i>habituées</i> exclaimed on his entrance, and made haste to tell him that -they had thought he was gone altogether, and to ask where he had been. -Rita took no part in these questions, but she gave him her left hand as -a sign of friendship, and smiled and nodded to him without stopping her -conversation with somebody else. Indeed, she treated him as if there had -been no break in their intercourse, as though they had met yesterday and -were to meet again to-morrow. This pleased Harry, and yet it wrung his -heart. Was he of so little importance to her that she had not even -noticed his absence? But that could not be. He began to wonder whether -it was perhaps a good sign. She <i>had</i> noticed his absence, speaking to -her father about it. Was it perhaps—? His heart began to beat again as -at first. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> Rita took very little notice of him all the evening. She -was perfectly sweet and smiling, and when she did address him did it -with all her old friendliness; but Harry could not persuade himself that -she had remarked him and his careful tie, and his well-brushed curls at -all.</p> - -<p>After that there ensued a time of mingled torture and happiness, when -Rita played with the young man as a cat plays with a mouse. She was more -interested in him than she had ever been in any young man before. He was -a study to her of the most attractive kind. A young man who was in -love—not a young man who was wanting to marry, a species of which she -had seen several specimens—but one who was actually, really, warmly in -love—and with herself. She wanted to see how such a person behaved. It -was as good as a play to her. She would laugh to herself secretly, -thinking of it, so much amused was she; and it seemed to her almost a -duty to try him in every way, to see how far this love would carry him, -and how long he would manage to keep it under. It did not occur to Rita -that this was a somewhat cruel process, or that Harry was pledged in -honour to her father not to betray himself. The cat most likely has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> no -idea of cruelty in her play with the mouse. Sometimes Rita would take no -notice of him at all, neglecting all the wistful attention which poor -Harry felt it was within his bond to bestow so long as he looked for -nothing in return. For a whole evening she would not so much as look at -him; then would suddenly turn with her most cordial smile, with a few -words more sweet than he thought she had ever bestowed upon him before. -Sometimes she would call him to her side, and ply him with seductions -which poor Harry did not know how to resist; sometimes she would devote -all her efforts to the task of making him betray himself, tempting him -with all sorts of opportunities. But Harry stood fast. He had given his -promise, and nothing would make him break it. He wavered like a tree in -the wind, but he never yielded. Sometimes she made him think that she -was ready to listen to anything he might say, and another time would -take the first opportunity of showing him that he was nothing to her. It -was hard upon the mouse; yet we doubt whether he would have exchanged -this agitated existence for the most happy calm. He went to the -Consulate with a continued expectation, with his heart always beating -loudly, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> knowing what he was to look for; but a more calm level of -kindness would not have given him those variations of feeling, that -dramatic interest in his life; so that, perhaps, there was not much harm -done, the tortured liking the play as much as the torturer. As for Rita -she was very much interested too; the pursuit amused her—it was a new -sensation. She wanted above all things to overcome his resolution, and -make him betray himself. But here her efforts were vain against the rock -of Harry’s invincibility. He would not, whatever she might do, break his -promise. He kept a watch upon himself which was not to be overcome.</p> - -<p>The Vice-Consul did not know what to make of the business altogether. It -gave him a great deal of thought. He watched the young man with a -jealous eye: but Harry met every scrutiny with an unflinching front. And -Mr. Bonamy did what he could to watch his daughter, but that was not so -easy. She was amusing herself, but whether she was going too far in her -trial of Harry’s constancy he could not tell. She bewildered her father, -which was not difficult; but what was more wonderful, after a while, -this venturous person began to bewilder herself. She thought she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> was -tired of Harry, who could not be got to swerve out of the right way. She -began to think that it was all a fiction, or that this love after the -English fashion was far too self-commanded and restrained for a half -Italian girl. She had thought at first that it would be quite easy and -extremely amusing to make him betray himself. And she had resolved in -such a case that his downfall should do him no harm; she would not -betray him; she would keep his secret. But she had not supposed that he -would stand out, that he would be able to resist her: and at length she -got confused about her own notions, and about his conduct and everything -around her, and knew no longer what to think.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /><br /> -<small>A CRISIS.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T was like a play the intercourse which went on between these two; the -perpetual aggressions of the girl and defences of the young man, the -troubled spectatorship of the father, who saw that slave of his word -resisting, fighting always, more or less feebly, but yet resisting all -the <i>agaceries</i>, all the temptations, which a spirit of mischief could -throw in his way. Sometimes the sight was laughable, sometimes it was -almost tragic, to the looker on; and he was much disturbed at the same -time on his own account, not knowing what Rita meant by it all. “Take -care what you are doing,” he would say to her, with mingled pity and -alarm—pity for the young man, alarm for himself and her. “What am<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> I -doing, papa?” Rita would ask, with the greatest innocence. “That is -exactly what I can’t tell,” poor Mr. Bonamy said. But his warnings never -came to more than this. And nothing in all her life had so amused Rita -as her torture of this unfortunate young man. One day they happened to -be alone for a little while, Mr. Bonamy having been called away. It was -on a Sunday evening, after dinner, a day when the Bonamys, following the -old-fashioned English rule, were always alone. Harry had avoided -opportunities of being alone with Rita as much as lovers generally -scheme for that privilege, but to-day there was no help for it. She was -seated at the open window in her usual dress of vapoury white; the -summer was advancing, and it would soon be time for the removal of the -household to the country, where they went every year. Mr. Bonamy had -been called away, quite unexpectedly, to his own dreadful vexation and -the terror of Harry, but to Rita’s secret delight. The night-air puffed -the white curtains over her head and about her white, half-visible -figure. The window looked out upon the garden, and there was a little -moisture of the sea in the air. Harry was standing at the other side of -the window,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> half concealed by the floating veil of the curtain. Rita -was half buried in a great chair. A shaded lamp stood on a table in the -other part of the room, but that was all, not light enough to see each -other by. There had been a somewhat long silence, and Harry was trying -hard to break loose from this enchantment and go away. But his heart was -faint with the sweetness of it, poor fellow! and he could not get free, -especially now that they were alone. If it could have been helped, he -would not have stayed; but he had not been able to help it, and it was -sweet. He was snatching a fearful joy, not saying anything, scarcely -daring to breathe. Then into the soft silence came her voice.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Oliver, they tell me summer nights in England are so much sweeter -than here. What are those long twilights? I have read about them, but I -don’t understand it. Tell me.” He could make out that she leaned forward -in her chair, putting her hands together, which was a way she had.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” said Harry, catching his breath, “that anything can be -sweeter than the evenings here.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but there is a difference; tell me. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> know that I am never to go -to England,” said Rita, plaintively; “though I remember you said you -would not be afraid to take me. What made you say that, Mr. Oliver? -perhaps you forget that you ever did.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; I don’t forget.”</p> - -<p>“You never would enter into any particulars; but I am glad at least that -you don’t forget. Now papa is away, we may talk of it. It always hurts -papa when I speak of England. So tell me—tell me quick—how was it that -you thought you could make it safe? Ah, how I wish you could!” she said, -clasping her hands.</p> - -<p>Harry said never a word. His heart was thumping so against his breast -that he thought every moment it would burst forth from that uneasy -house. Now it got into his throat, and seemed to choke him; he could not -speak.</p> - -<p>“You don’t say anything,” said Rita, with again a little tone of -complaint. “Do you think that is kind, or fair? You rouse my -expectations, and then you never say another word. I have thought of it -all this time, and always wondered if you would ever tell me. How could -Mr. Oliver manage to take me to England without danger? that is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> what I -have always been saying to myself. What, Mr. Oliver! won’t you say a -word?”</p> - -<p>Here there burst a cry from Harry’s breast. “Don’t torture me,” he said; -then collecting all his strength, “It was my presumption. I thought only -that to take—the most precious care of you——”</p> - -<p>His voice shook, and at last his little torturer felt that she had got -almost to the end of his powers.</p> - -<p>“That is a very pretty way of saying it, Mr. Oliver; precious care; it -is not slang, is it? I am sure you would be kind—very, very kind.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, <i>kind</i>!” cried poor Harry, grasping unconsciously the white -curtains that kept blowing between him and her, in his strong, hot -hands.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you like the word? I think it is such a nice word. There is -nothing like it in Italian, and you can apply it so widely. You can be -kind to a horse or a dog; and then to children, and sick people and poor -people; and then—to everybody—me. You have always been, ever since I -knew you, very kind to me.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say so—don’t say so—not that word,” Harry cried.</p> - -<p>“But there is no other word half so good.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> Other words express other -feelings; kind means, just kind. There is nothing else expresses it. -English is a wonderfully fine language. It is so strong and so -trustworthy. You feel as if you could believe it, every word. Mr. -Oliver,” said Rita, in her little, soft, insinuating voice, “did you -really, really believe that—that I might go to England, if—someone -were to take care of me, such care as you call precious; but, then, who -would do that? not papa, for he is so frightened. No one I know.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Bonamy, I must say good night,” said Harry, very shortly, taking -himself out of the floating curtain, almost tearing it down in his -agitation.</p> - -<p>“Good night! before papa comes back? Oh, but that would be <i>un</i>kind. -Don’t. Why should you run off in such a hurry in the very middle of our -talk?”</p> - -<p>“Because,” he said, with the crushed curtain like a wisp in his hands, -“I can’t stay—I mustn’t stay. Forgive me, and, if you will, excuse me: -and—good night!”</p> - -<p>He was rushing away, when she put out her hand. He saw that, though -there was so little light. He could not refuse to shake hands with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> her; -and instead of leaving the pressure to him, she took hold of his hand -for a second, lightly but firmly detaining him. “Mr. Oliver,” she said, -with that little plaintive tone, “you should not run away.”</p> - -<p>Harry was hoarse with agitation and distress. That soft, light touch of -detention made him wild. “I must fly,” he said, “fly! Do you think I -want to go? I must fly, and come no more.”</p> - -<p>And he turned and disappeared like an arrow, as swift, but not so -noiselessly, stumbling through the dark room. She lay back in her chair -and listened to him all the way rushing down the stairs, shutting the -great door with a clang. Then his steps were audible along the street -hurrying away. The very foot, Rita thought, spoke English among the -other footsteps. She seemed to hear them ever so far off, hurrying, -flying. She was a spoiled child. She had not succeeded in her wicked -attempt, and some other feeling mingled with the childish disappointment -which provoked and mortified her. When the Vice-Consul came back, not -without a great deal of anxiety in his mind, he found her still sitting -there, crying as if her perverse heart would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> break. It gave him a -mingled sense of fright and relief to see that there was no one else in -the room; but when he found that Rita was crying, his foolish, fatherly -heart was melted altogether. He hurried across the half-lighted room. -“What is the matter, my darling, what is the matter? Where is Oliver? Is -it his fault?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Papa,” cried Rita, with sobs, “do not speak to me of Mr. Oliver; he is -a clod, he is a stone. It is not a bit true what you told me of him. He -must have been laughing at you—or perhaps at me. It is not a bit true.”</p> - -<p>“What is it that is not true? My pet, this young fellow has been saying -something to vex you? Bless my heart! he shall go to-morrow if he has -broken his word and said anything to annoy you.”</p> - -<p>And the Vice-Consul, very wroth, drew a chair to the side of Rita’s, and -put his arm round her, soothing her with soft words and caresses, and -launching thunderbolts of anger at the supposed culprit. Rita cried -softly for some time on her father’s shoulder. Then she interrupted him, -putting her hand upon his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Papa, don’t; you don’t know. What pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>vokes me is different. It is not -because he said anything. Listen,” said Rita, putting her lips to his -ear; “I <i>know</i> it is not true what he said to you. It can’t be true, -because I have tried him and tried him, and he <i>won’t</i> say anything. He -has no feeling at all in him, and it cannot be true.”</p> - -<p>“Rita! Rita! what are you saying?” Mr. Bonamy cried.</p> - -<p>The horror in his voice brought her to herself. She sat up suddenly, -drying her eyes. “Well, papa, it is your fault. You gave me a puzzle to -make out. I thought it would be fun; but it is not fun. As for Mr. -Oliver, he is just an excellent, trustworthy Englishman. You need not -fear that he will ever be carried away. As for feeling, I don’t think he -knows what it is. He is English—English all over.” She clapped her -hands together to give emphasis to her sentence, like a true Italian, -which by turns she was.</p> - -<p>“Yes, he is English—very English. I thought you liked everything that -was English,” the surprised father said.</p> - -<p>“And so I do; but what does it matter if you will never, never let me go -to England? Take me to England, papa!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“My darling! when you know what my feeling is on that subject—anything -but that, Rita; ask me anything but that.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” she replied, “Mr. Oliver said there would be no difficulty about -it; he said he would take the most precious care of me. Is that slang, -papa?”</p> - -<p>“Slang? bless my heart, it sounds like something quite different to me,” -cried the Vice-Consul, frowning. But Rita once more put her hand upon -his mouth.</p> - -<p>“You know better than I do,” she said, demurely. “I could not be sure -which it was; but you may make yourself quite comfortable, papa, for Mr. -Oliver is very conscientious, and never said a word. I begin,” she said -pensively, “to understand English now.”</p> - -<p>“Rita, I think you must be taking leave of your senses. You begin to -understand English! your own language!”</p> - -<p>She nodded her head a great many times in reply.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I begin to understand it,” she said. And this was all he could get -out of her. She began presently to talk upon other subjects, and kept -him amused all the rest of the evening, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> Harry was not mentioned -again between them.</p> - -<p>But Harry himself, poor fellow, went home like the wind, or rather like -a straw blown before the wind; hastening, without any apparent movement -of his own, to the bare rooms which were his only refuge. He arrived -there panting like a man pursued, and shut his door as if it were a -fence between him and his pursuers. He could not have explained to -himself why he did this, for Rita, though she had certainly assailed -him, had not come after him through the streets, as by his appearance -one might have thought she had done, forcing him to his best speed. But -when he sat down and thought it all over, though Harry was excited to -the highest degree, it could scarcely be said of him that he was -unhappy. He was breathless with the excitement of his escape. He said to -himself that he must not go again; that he would not run such risks -again, that another time he must betray himself; but all the time, -underneath everything, he had the consciousness that his very flight had -told his story as effectually as words could have done it, and that she -could not now be at any loss to know what was the moving spring of all -his recent life. He felt that she had suspected<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> him all these days. He -knew that she had meant to surprise his secret somehow, whether in -simple love of mischief and curiosity, or whether with some other -motive, who could tell? but certainly this was what she had been doing: -and there dawned upon him a light of something which was not exactly -hope, but which yet warmed and brightened his horizon, and made the -whole world somehow a better, a less heavy and tedious place. He did not -say even to himself that anything definite was in his hope; what he said -was that he could not go back, that he would run no more risks, that, -whatever might be said to him on the subject, his policy was to keep -away. But this had no such tragic meaning to him as it had on the -previous occasion, when his life had been cut off in half, and his -heart, he thought, rent in twain. If he was ever made to go back -again—a thought which made Harry’s heart jump, but which he did not -feel, as before, was impossible—then it would not be to hold his -tongue. And whatever happened there was one thing which he could not be -doubtful about. He had saved his honour, hard as had been the trial, and -yet she <i>knew</i>. She could not, he was sure, either mistake him or ignore -him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> any longer. Reject him, yes; allow him to languish far from her, -which would be the kindest thing, unless—— but certainly now she knew.</p> - -<p>And then a week or more elapsed. After the first twenty-four hours Harry -began to have heats and chills, wondering if he would be forbidden to go -again. He did not intend to go, but yet to be sent away is different; -and he awaited a summons to the Vice-Consul with feelings of alarm. But -though he was constantly summoned to the Vice-Consul’s presence, he -heard nothing upon this all-interesting subject. Mr. Bonamy looked -coldly upon him for the first day, but said nothing save about business. -And afterwards Harry went on just as before. Rita’s “night” came round, -but Harry did not go. He dressed himself as if he were going, and got -rid of Paolo, who had been greatly disappointed by the total absence of -confidence in him which his friend showed. Naturally, after his -exertions on Harry’s behalf, the offer of the ring and the studs, the -purchase of the flower and the eau-de-cologne, Paolo had felt that he -had a right to hear all that had taken place, and how the lady had been -won, which he did not think would be a difficult matter. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> idea that -his friend could be called back without the lady being won, did not -occur to his swift Italian mind. And after that critical moment when he -linked his arm in Harry’s, and led him eagerly off to the quietest -promenade he could think of, to hear all about it, Paolo had treated -Harry’s indignant denial that there was anything to tell with the -contempt it deserved. “Nothing?” he had said, with an astonishment -almost beyond speech. “Nothing? But that means that you do not wish to -tell me—that you will not give your confidence to me.” When Harry -disclaimed this, Paolo had only shook his head. “I see that you have not -trust in me,” he said, and he had retired in his turn for a few days -from his friend’s society, and a little coolness and momentary -estrangement had ensued.</p> - -<p>But some time had elapsed since then, and one of those reconciliations -of which Harry was afraid had followed, and Paolo’s interest was warmer -than ever. He watched his friend’s looks and noted every visit he paid, -so that it required nothing less than the effort of dressing and setting -out for the Vice-Consul’s to shake himself free from Paolo’s society and -remarks. Harry went to the very street, to the opposite side, to watch -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> windows, and to get a glimpse if he could of the little white -figure, which was the central point in the world to him. But long before -the usual hour the party broke up, and Harry was surprised by a sudden -outpouring of groups of people in evening dresses—ladies with scarfs -thrown over their heads, and satin slippers, not adapted for the rough -pavement. Some of these groups, departing guests, perceived him, before -he was aware. “Oh! are you going to the Bonamys?” said a lady; “don’t -go; the Vice-Consul has been taken ill; he has had a fit or something. -You may see how early we are coming away.” The whole street was soon -full of a babble of voices, all talking of this. The Vice-Consul had -been suddenly taken ill; he had fainted in the midst of the assembly, -and the doctor had been sent for in haste. When Harry looked up at the -windows they were all deserted—the lights still burning, the white -curtains faintly swaying about, but the rooms entirely empty. In a -moment all had become miserable and neglected. Life had ebbed out of the -room, and left everything cold and silent. He felt with a chill at his -heart as if death had come in instead to fill up the vacant place; he -went to the door to inquire about his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> kind patron, his trustful master, -his fatherly friend, with a heart out of which all the previous thoughts -had departed for the moment. He thought of Rita, indeed, with instant -anxiety; but yet her father was foremost in his mind. “Very bad, sir,” -the servant said, who was an Englishman, “very bad,” holding the door -wide open as he said so; and Harry went in in his evening clothes, -looking as if he had meant to go to the party. He was a little scared -afterwards to think that Rita never could know that he did not mean to -come to the party. He went upstairs into the empty drawing-room; there -were a few signs of hasty disturbance about it, evidences of the sudden -interruption; a card-table set out with all the cards as they had been -dealt round it; groups of chairs standing together, and a tray of ices -on a side-table. Such a forsaken room always raises an infinite crowd of -suggestions. It is such a lesson upon the dangers and changes of life as -no sermon can read. Harry stood in the midst of it, feeling as if he had -seen the writing on the wall which startled the ancient king in the -midst of his revel. It had been an innocent revel—nothing in it to -offend earth or heaven; but the touch of a sudden calamity makes even -the most innocent pleasure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>-making seem vain. He stood there feeling as -if on the edge of a tomb, hearing in the distance muffled yet hasty -steps running to and fro, and all the excitement of a sudden illness. -And he had plenty of time to indulge these thoughts, for nobody came -near the room for, he thought, hours; though, of course, this was a -mistaken estimate of the time that really passed. At last Harry heard -measured steps and voices coming downstairs, and hurrying to the door -found the English doctor in company with one of the ladies of the -English community who had known Rita all her life. They told him that -the Vice-Consul’s attack was a very serious one, that he was still -unconscious, and that no one as yet could say how it would turn. “I have -told him for some time he ought to go away. He was struggling foolishly, -when he ought to have given in as so many people do.” “And poor little -Rita, what is to become of her?” the lady said.</p> - -<p>Harry stood with his heart in his mouth, ready for any service. Alas! -what can a young man do in such a case? An old woman is of more use. He -was sent off, however, to fetch a nurse, and to get various articles -that were necessary, and this gave him occupation. He was about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> -house all the night, hearing with faint pleasure that Rita would not -leave her father’s bedside, and glad to share her vigil. He would have -liked to be there too to help, not caring what he did. The Vice-Consul -was very ill for many days, during which time Harry threw himself into -the business of the office, and worked like a slave. He thought neither -of reward nor of the manner in which his behaviour was being -contemplated by the little community around, all as much interested as -the population of a village, though they formed an important part of a -large and busy town. He thought nothing of all this; his new life -absorbed him so that he had no faculty or thought that was free for -anything else. He did not seem to require either rest or regular meals, -but took up Mr. Bonamy’s work during the day, and ran about on any -errand of the sick-room all the night.</p> - -<p>And at last the patient began to get better. The seizure had been a very -bad one, but he mended, and was at last able to be removed. He was too -confused even then to know what was being done for him, or to realise -the state into which his work must have got but for the strenuous and -anxious deputyship of his clerk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> He was taken away even without -knowing, without being able to say a word to Harry. But Rita, who had so -tortured him, who even in the midst of her watch had heard without -knowing it how Harry had taken her father’s place, and how he had made -himself the servant of the house, did not leave him without a token of -her gratitude. One day, while he was sitting absorbed in business, but -not able to keep himself from thinking now and then wistfully whether he -should see either of them before they went away, there came a soft -little knock at the door of communication by which the Vice-Consul had -introduced him first into his house. Harry was at Mr. Bonamy’s own -table, taking his place, and feeling himself already so much at home in -the work that the appeals which he had dreaded at first no longer -affected him. But when he heard this knock his whole frame quivered. He -did not know what to expect. He got up trembling from his chair, and -opened the door. In the passage stood Rita, very worn and pale, with -dark lines round the eyes that seemed to fill up all her face. She had -scarcely left her father’s bedside, he had heard, watching over him -night and day. Her slight little figure, always so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> slim and girlish, -seemed to have shrunk to nothing. There was not a trace of colour in her -face. “Miss Bonamy!” he said, with a sharp tone of surprise, though he -was not surprised; the moment he had heard the knock he had been aware -that Rita, and no other, must have made that appeal. The touch on the -door had conveyed a plaintive sound to him like her voice. She smiled, -but did not say anything. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears, and the -soft lines of her mouth quivered. She came into the office, where he -stood gazing at her, and held out to him both her hands, smiling up in -his face like a child. “I have come to thank you,” she said, at last, -the two big tears dropping like drops of rain in a thunder shower, “for -all your—kindness.” She paused a little before that last word, and -through the tears, through the angelical, pathetic smile, which wrung -poor Harry’s heart, there came something that was like a ghost of -mischief. She remembered their last conversation, though so much had -happened since, and could not refrain, though her heart was moved to its -depths, from throwing this ghost of a malicious shaft at him. Somehow -the effect upon Harry was of a different kind from before. Perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> he -felt that he had now a standing-ground which no one could undervalue or -take from him. At all events he kept her hands in his, and looked at her -with a gaze under which her eyes swerved. “It was not kindness,” he -said.</p> - -<p>Rita drew back a step, though her hands were held fast. Her eyes -drooped, she could not meet his, though Harry’s eyes were insignificant -English eyes in comparison with those great dreamy lights that shone out -of her little pale face. Then she gave one sudden glance at him, -wavering and trembling. “I know it was not,” said Rita, with a great -effort to steady her voice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /><br /> -<small>THE VICE-CONSUL’S RESOLUTION.</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Bonamys had a little country-house near the sea, one of those grey -houses, with its vineyard and its fields, which are so common in Italy, -so homely, having so little of the picturesque grace which is suggested -by everything Italian to our minds. The rooms were large and sparely -furnished, one of them, the only pleasant one, opening upon a terrace -which overlooked the sea. Here the Vice-Consul was brought, and laid -upon a couch in the long warm days, after the sun had gone off the -house, to breathe in the pleasant saltness, and refresh himself with -that profound Mediterranean blue which is like nothing else. At first he -was able for no mental, and not much physical, effort,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> but by degrees -life came back to him; and with the earliest gleams of revival came the -recollection of all that had dropped out of his hands, his work, the -office, all that had depended upon him. When this first crisis came, -which had been much dreaded by the doctors, Rita had to meet it alone. -It came in a moment, after a day of listless enjoyment. There had been -some cool breezes, and a little breath of more vigorous life had got -into his relaxed and feeble frame. He had fallen asleep in the -afternoon, his daughter sitting by him. All was tranquil round about, as -became the surroundings of a convalescent, the air breathing softly, the -violent sun, which is in Italy an enemy of the feeble, happily gone out -of sight, the sea sounding softly upon the rocks, the cicala shrill in -the trees. It was the only sharp note in all that quiet, but Rita, for -one, no more knew of the existence of a country landscape without the -shrill tones of the cicala, than an English girl could realise one -without the birds. There were no great trees about, nothing but those -which were useful according to the frugal custom of wealthy Tuscany, -where everything is expected to bear fruit. The lattice-work overhead -was partly covered with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> vine, which made a green roof over one part -of it; but the sick man wanted all the air he could get, so he was not -below the pergola, but in the open part, the soft breeze blowing freely -about him. He lay with his fine head turned towards the sea, a beard, -the growth of his illness, softening the gauntness of the lower part of -his face, sleeping with that utter <i>abandon</i> of weakness which seems to -restore something of the charm of childhood to the sick. Rita sat by, -with a book in her hands which she was not reading. It would be hard to -tell what she was doing; not thinking either;—scenes in the past, -scenes in the future, were gliding through her dreamy mind. Which was -most real she could not tell. She was standing on the edge of fate, not -knowing what a day or a moment might bring forth. All the world had -paused with her in that suspense which was sweet. She did not want to be -done with it or to shorten it, or to make anything advance a step -faster; indeed she did not know what it was that was going to come. But -<i>it</i> would not end there, she said sometimes to herself; it was -impossible that it could end there; one thing or another must come of -it. But what it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> was she wanted to come of it, Rita, even to herself, -would not venture to say.</p> - -<p>When all at once, everything being so quiet, the Vice-Consul suddenly -woke up. He opened his eyes with more energy than usual, and made a -little movement to rise, with an impulse of active life, such as he had -not shown before.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you are there, my pet,” he said. “I was dreaming that we were at -home; that there had been despatches. I fear I have been sadly idle. How -long have I been ill? It is too early for us to be here.”</p> - -<p>“No, papa,” said Rita, alarmed. “Oh, not at all too early—at this time -we are always here.”</p> - -<p>He raised himself on his arm, and a startled look came upon his face.</p> - -<p>“How long have I been ill?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Never mind, papa—a—good while. You are not to think of that; but to -get better, and not to trouble yourself.”</p> - -<p>“That is nonsense, my dear; there is the office that must be thought of; -if you knew the arrears that accumulate even in a few days. I seem to -have lost count of time; oddly enough. I can’t remember anything. How -many—days is it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>”</p> - -<p>His eyes opened wide, his under lip quivered a little, and a flush of -weakness and excitement came upon his cheek. Rita threw down her book -and came hastily to his side, kneeling down by the sofa.</p> - -<p>“Papa! you must not be anxious; you must not ask any questions yet. This -I can tell you, there are no arrears. Mr. Oliver has got the charge of -everything, and he is doing it all so well, so well, Mr. Henderson told -me. He said, ‘If it was not so heart-breaking to miss his dear face,’ -and here Rita gave her father a sudden kiss to conceal, and at the same -time to express, her own agitation, ‘one could scarcely see the -difference. Mr. Oliver has behaved like—nobody ever behaved so well.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Bless my soul!” said Mr. Bonamy, putting up his hand to stroke his -daughter’s face, “here is enthusiasm! I did not know you thought so much -of Oliver.” Then it suddenly occurred to him to look at that hand. He -held it up and contemplated it, at first with amusement, afterwards with -a little alarm. “Here is a poor old claw,” he said, “that looks like—— -why, Rita, it looks like a very bad bout; it looks like a—long illness. -Good heavens! am I deceiving myself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> How long have I been ill?” this he -said in a very peremptory tone.</p> - -<p>“Papa,” Rita said, putting her arms around him, “Mr. Oliver has managed -everything, there is nothing to trouble yourself about. Mr. Henderson -said so, and so did the man from Florence—that man, I forget his name.”</p> - -<p>A look of anguish came upon Mr. Bonamy’s face. To come under the -reproof, or subject himself to the interference of the Consul-General at -Florence, had always been the terror of his official life. He had kept -the danger at bay hitherto, acting with great independence, and being -permitted to do so in an astonishing way; but he had known, or thought -he knew, that they were ready to pounce upon him at the first -opportunity. The idea of a man from Florence was bitter to him beyond -conception. A dark colour came over his face, a sort of purple hue, -which made Rita wild with terror.</p> - -<p>“What—what—what?” he cried, stammering. Rita thought he was going to -have another fit; she called out for Benedetta, Benedetta! and with -anxious hands, caressing, yet half forcing him back upon his pillows, -began to fan him with a great fan which lay on his sofa. He allowed her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> -to lay him down, and perhaps the sight of her anxiety moved him to exert -all his powers of self-control. He subdued the rising confusion of -passionate mortification within him; in which effort he was helped by -his weakness, which made any great convulsion of feeling impossible. -By-and-bye he looked up at her with a half-smile. Benedetta had come at -her call, and was bringing water and vinegar, and bandages of linen to -put on his head. He waved all these appliances away with his hand.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be afraid, I am not going to be—worse,” he said feebly. “I may -be bad enough, but not worse. When did the man from Florence come? Tell -me everything now.”</p> - -<p>Then Rita, hesitating and faltering, told him the story of his illness, -and all the long history burst confusedly upon his brain. He had thought -he had been a few days, perhaps a week ill, and he had been six weeks. -He had been preparing himself for a great deal to do when he should get -well, and he found himself replaced, put aside. There were points in the -story which consoled him. It was no man from Florence who had been doing -his work—that was a wonderful comfort—but his own friend, the young -fellow whom he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> taken up and been kind to, who was the creature of -his bounty. The Consul-General had not found a word to say; he had -approved, and sanctioned, and authorised everything, and the character -of Mr. Bonamy’s work had been kept up. He lay still and kept himself -quiet, and listened to every word. Benedetta, who did not understand the -English, stood by with all her appliances, her cold compresses, her -bandages, the soft white folds of linen in which his hot forehead was to -be bound. But the patient eluded her. He kept himself quiet in spite of -all temptations.</p> - -<p>“You can send her away, Rita,” he said. “What are you frightened for? I -must have known sooner or later. It is far better that I should know. I -have been surrounded by friends, everybody has been good to me; and if -you have no objection, my darling, I should like to see Oliver here.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said Rita, “why you should think I could have any -objection to—anything you wished, papa.”</p> - -<p>There was almost a glow of amusement in the Consul’s eyes. “My dear, you -are very dutiful,” he said. And then the time came when he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> to be -carried back again in his couch indoors before the hour of sunset, which -is feared throughout Italy, and to have his invalid meal brought to him. -The evening was marked by a great event, for that night the Vice-Consul -walked to bed, which was a thing which never had happened before. And -from this time Mr. Bonamy began to accustom himself to all that had -happened, and when the doctor came he extracted from him the full -history of his illness, which interested him very greatly, and gave him -something to think about. It was not unnatural that he should be -startled. “It is a thing that is sure to recur again?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Well, we do not say that anything is sure to recur again. We say that, -given the same disposition, the same symptoms might reappear.”</p> - -<p>“And the third time kills?” the Vice-Consul said.</p> - -<p>“My dear Bonamy, that again is not a thing we say. Every repetition of -course weakens the patient,” said the judicious doctor.</p> - -<p>The sick man laughed, but when he was alone his countenance was very -grave. He lay and reflected upon everything, and thought how<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> lonely his -child would be when he was taken from her. She had some relations, but -his anxiety to keep her from going to England had made him negligent of -his own family at home; and he had something to leave her; he had not -left his child altogether without provision. But what a change it would -be to Rita, from the house where she was queen, where everybody -worshipped and served her, where everything she said was reckoned wiser, -and everything she did more wonderful, than any other sayings or doings, -to be a semi-dependant in the house of her Aunt Ersilia, or some other -of the Italian kindred, with their different ways! This thought filled -Mr. Bonamy’s mind as he lay in the long unoccupied hours of his -convalescence with his face turned to the blue Italian sea. Two days -after he made a request to his child. “Will you write a note to Oliver,” -he said, “and ask him to come and see me? But not if you have any -objection.” He watched her intently, and he saw a quick, faint colour -flash over her face.</p> - -<p>“Why should I have any objection? I told you I had not any, papa; and if -I had what would it matter?” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It would matter a great deal to me. But you do not dislike poor Oliver, -Rita?”</p> - -<p>“Dislike him! Do you think I am made of stone? He has done everything, -<i>everything</i>, while you have been ill. I should be a demon if I did -not—if I disliked him as you say.”</p> - -<p>“But there is a great difference,” said the Vice-Consul, “between -dislike and—I don’t know, my pet, what word to use.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, there is a great difference,” she said, demurely; and having her -paper neatly arranged before her, she proceeded to write the note which -follows:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="indd"> -“Dear Mr. Oliver,<br /> -</p> - -<p>“Papa is a great deal better. He thinks he would like to see you on -Sunday if you would be so good as to come out here. He has been -very much touched to hear of all you have been doing for him. And -so am I. He wants to know all about it, and to thank you. But do -not think you will be troubled with any thanks from me, for I know -that you do not mean to be kind to us, though on the outside it -looks like it.</p> - -<p class="c"> -<span style="margin-right: 15%;">“Truly yours,</span><br /> -“<span class="smcap">Margherita Bonamy</span>.”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> - -<p>Here was once more her malice, which she could not put out of the -question between them. She was glad that her father did not ask to see -her note, and she put it up and sent it away with a little quickening of -all her pulses. Sunday was the next day, but she felt sure enough that -Harry would let no engagement prevent him accepting this invitation. -They sat in silence for some time after that letter was despatched. Rita -felt her whole life quickened, her horizon wider, the day of more -importance, the passing moments more weighty. She sat quite silent, her -mind being full of so many thoughts. At last the Vice-Consul spoke, as -if no pause had occurred. “Notwithstanding,” he said, “you know Oliver -is not clever, Rita; that must be taken into account.”</p> - -<p>On this Rita, not perceiving that she betrayed the strain of her own -thoughts by receiving the remark without surprise, answered, with a -little sigh of regret, “No, he is not clever; but perhaps there are some -things that are better than being clever,” she added, in a doubtful -tone.</p> - -<p>Mr. Bonamy laughed a little, faintly. “Are you coming to see that?” he -said.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know if I am coming to see it, papa. I think I always saw it. -One does not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> think much whether the people one cares for are clever or -not.” Then perceiving the inference which might be drawn from her words, -Rita blushed wildly, and turned suddenly upon her father defiant eyes. -But he did not make any remark, half because he was weak, half because -of a mingled pang of satisfaction and pain to think that “the people she -cared for” now included other relations than those of the earliest stage -in life. A father, perhaps, feels it more than a mother when his -daughter’s heart goes away from him to another man: there is a keener -jealousy in it, a sharper sense of contrast. He had concentrated all his -happiness in his child; and, lo! in a moment there appeared a stranger -in her life who would be more to her than he was. The first shock of -this discovery is always painful; and as he lay there bearing this and -thinking over all that was before him, an infinite sadness came into the -Vice-Consul’s smile. It was not only natural that this blossom of his -life should detach itself from him, but it was well. To preside at and -assist in the replacement of one’s self by another, preparing as it were -the preliminary ceremonials of one’s own funeral, is a curious -experience; but Mr. Bonamy felt, with a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> melancholy that this was -the thing which it now remained for him to do. He could not help making -comparisons between himself and Harry. Harry was not clever; he was a -good fellow who sat and gaped when the conversation took anything beyond -a practical turn. Yes: he was a very good fellow; he had been a saviour -in trouble; but yet—Mr. Bonamy smiled sadly at the idea of stepping -down from his throne, and bidding Harry mount in his place; he could not -promote him to his vice-consulship, but he could promote him to the -throne of Rita, which was more. And it would be well—the best thing -that could happen. Having once had an “attack,” which was how he put it -euphemistically—a man was sure to have more; and the third kills. -Therefore, how needful it was, how essential to have some one to care -for Rita, somebody in whose hands he could leave her—when he died! -“When I die”—these are words which it is hard to say without some faint -shiver. When one is far off from all appearance of that conclusion, they -may be easy; but when the preliminaries of the end have already taken -place, and the clouds are gathering towards the great final tableau and -termination, then the very cadence of them has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> something in it that -gives a tingle to all the nerves. “When I die.” Mr. Bonamy was not much -over fifty; he had not thought of anything of the kind. But here it was -looking him in the face whether he would or not.</p> - -<p>Harry came at the summons without a moment’s delay. He brought a full -report of all the business to lay before his chief. The Vice-Consul, -notwithstanding his dreary thoughts, was making unmistakable progress. -He was better every day. He was able to take an interest in all that his -deputy had to tell him, and to feel the gratification which all the -office had shared in baffling the man from Florence, and showing him a -state of affairs with which no fault could be found.</p> - -<p>“I told him, Sir, that your business was always in too perfect order to -break down with such a little trial. I showed him how we had only to -follow your rule, and all was clear.” Mr. Bonamy laid his thin hand upon -the young fellow’s shoulder, and patted it softly.</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” he said, “if you would say as much for me if I had no -daughter?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Harry, with the utmost energy; “don’t think, Sir, that I had -any interested motive.” This pleased the Vice-Consul; and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> pleased -him too that Harry resented with scorn, and almost indignation, the idea -that he might not return to his work, or that this illness of his was a -break up, as in his heart Mr. Bonamy believed it to be. Harry knew -nothing whatever about medicine, but his light-hearted certainty that -his patron would be in the office again in October as well as ever, gave -a cheer to the sick man’s failing heart, as shouts of encouragement from -the shore, and the sight of all the eager assistants ready to help and -watching every struggle, cheer a vessel which is trying to reach a -dangerous harbour. There began to steal into his heart a feeling that, -perhaps—after all. Notwithstanding he held by his first resolution. He -had a long conversation with Harry, which had nothing to do with -business. The young man never forgot that half hour’s talk, with the sea -air blowing softly over all the sweetness of the garden, the cicala in -the trees, the sound of the Mediterranean beyond. Harry thought that -once or twice he saw in the dim room beyond a little white figure appear -in the distance, opening a door, looking wistfully to see if the -conference was nearly at an end, then disappearing again. And though the -Vice-Consul was opening the gates of heaven to him, at that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> moment even -Mr. Bonamy seemed tedious. The last time the apparition showed the -Vice-Consul had gripped Harry’s hand with those long worn fingers, which -he called claws, not without a certain justice. “And you must give me -your word never to take her to England,” he was saying, in a low and -earnest voice. But before Harry could reply, Rita, impatient, had come -across the dim room indoors, and was standing in the window with a -pucker in her forehead, and a tone of querulous impatience.</p> - -<p>“You ought to have had your beef-tea, and your champagne, and your -tonic, and all your nourishments,” said Rita. “I have looked in a dozen -times, but you were always so busy! What can you have to say to Mr. -Oliver all this time? He ought not to keep you so long—when you know an -invalid wants feeding constantly,” she said, turning with petulance to -Harry. “How could you be so thoughtless, Mr. Oliver? that was not kind -at all.”</p> - -<p>Harry did not reply anything to this tirade. He looked at her as if the -mere sight of her was enough for him; as if nothing that could be said -made any difference. As for Rita, she was not tranquil, but excited, and -half angry. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> impossible to suppose that they had not been talking -about her, and like many other people she objected mightily to being -talked over. She came out and in with a nervous, irritable haste, -bringing trays with food and medicine which she would permit no one to -touch. Harry, when he offered his help, was driven from her with -contumely, and even Benedetta, making her appearance behind, had the cup -of jelly she carried snatched from her hands and was sent summarily -away.</p> - -<p>“I will have no one serve papa but myself,” Rita said. Perhaps there was -a little compunction in it. When the heat of devotion has cooled do not -we sometimes add all manner of observances to make up outside for what -is wanting within? She was nervously conscious of Harry’s presence, and -aware of the approaching moment when he would insist upon speaking for -himself. And now compunction had seized her capricious soul. She was -angry with her lover because he had stolen her heart from its first -owner. And she would fain have persuaded that first owner even in the -act of betraying him that she was his entirely, and that everything -which withdrew her from him was a pain and irritation to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> her. Harry, -being simple, was deceived and greatly discouraged; but the Consul, -having more insight, was never deceived.</p> - -<p>And in the evening the inevitable explanation came. It could not be -delayed any longer. The <i>Curiosa Impertinente</i> reaped the consequences -of all her tricks, and all the trials to which she had subjected Harry. -She fell into the pit which she had herself digged. She might even have -been said to be at his mercy, but for his simple devotion, which thought -of no vengeance, and her own spirit and pride, which would have carried -her through any reprisals, and still might have turned the tables upon -him: but in the evening, when the Consul had gone to bed, they wandered -about the terrace under the soft Italian stars, and understood each -other.</p> - -<p>“There is only one thing,” Rita said. “Nothing in the world shall induce -me to call you Isaac. Choose another name, choose any name you please; -but Isaac you are not going to be. What could tempt anybody to call a -child Isaac? it is dreadful. Godfathers and godmothers ought to be -within the reach of the law.”</p> - -<p>Then there suddenly seemed to encircle Harry for a moment the atmosphere -of a very different<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> place. Grey hills rose around him, the stars took a -cold, yet a kinder sparkle; the blue depths of the sea faded away into a -misty valley full of vapours.</p> - -<p>“When I was a child,” he said, “they called me Harry.” He did not make -any further explanations, nor did he feel that any were necessary. For a -moment he seemed to see his mother, with her two thin hands clasped -together, and to hear her voice calling him: but this was but a phantom, -a pale vision, a thing that had passed away for ever. Next moment he was -back again in the warm Italian night, with the cicala chirping, and -Rita, in a little burst of enthusiasm and pleasure, calling him by that -familiar unrelinquished name.</p> - -<p class="fint"> -END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.<br /> -<br /><small> -London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13 Poland Street.</small> -</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Harry Joscelyn; vol. 2 of 3, by -Mrs. Margaret Oliphant - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY JOSCELYN; VOL. 2 OF 3 *** - -***** This file should be named 63158-h.htm or 63158-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/5/63158/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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