May I?"
"No. To-day your blue eyes would stab my sleep. I will ring when I want you."
Dropping the filmy lace curtains, in order to lessen the reflection from the water, Regina softly stole away, and sat down at the window of the salon, where satin-leaved arums and dainty pearly orchids embellished the consoles, and fragrant heliotrope and geraniums were blooming in pots clustered upon the stone balcony outside.
Each day the favourite view of the lake and bending shore line, upon which she gazed from this spot, developed some new beauty, hidden hitherto under leafy laurel shadows, or behind the snowy soil of some fishing-boat, rocking idly upon the azure waves.
Now the burden of her reflections was:
"If we could only spend our lives in this marble haven, away from the turmoil and feverish confusion of the outside world—forgetting the past, contented with the society of each other—and shut in with God and nature, how peaceful the future would be! nay, how happy all might yet become!"
Sympathy with her mother had forced her to put temporarily aside the contemplation of her own sorrow, but in secret it preyed upon her heart; and whenever a letter arrived, she dreaded the announcement of Mr. Palma's marriage.
His parting allusion to a brief European visit she had by the aid of her fears interpreted to mean a bridal tour, curtailed by his business engagements; and though she never mentioned his name when it could be avoided, she could not hear it casually pronounced by her uncle or mother, without feeling her heart bound suddenly.
Once, soon after her arrival in Paris, her mother, in reading a letter from Mr. Palma, glanced at her, and said:
"Your guardian desires me to say, that in your undisguised devotion to Uncle Orme he presumes he is completely forgotten; but consoles himself with the reflection, that from time immemorial wards have been like the Carthaginians—proverbially ungrateful."