“Would to Heaven I had yielded to your wishes!”
“From that time I have scarcely seen anything of you, Paul. You have visited me by fits and starts, and have never stayed long.”
As she spoke, an idea darted into Mrs. Desfrayne’s mind.
“After traveling about in various parts of Italy, as I kept you informed by my letters, I reached Florence.”
His lips trembled as he pronounced the name of the city which bore so many painful memories for him.
“Go on, my dear.”
“I remained at Florence for several weeks. While there, I went every night to the opera.”
“A very agreeable manner of spending your evenings,” said Mrs. Desfrayne, with assumed carelessness.
“There was an excellent company, and the operas were admirably selected; but I did not go for the sake of either performers or pieces: I went, drawn thither as by a lodestone, because I was under some kind of strange hallucination that I was in love with a young girl who had just come out there. Perhaps I may have been in love with her. It was folly—a madness!”
There was no sign of emotion on Mrs. Desfrayne’s face. She sat almost immovable as a statue, her hands loosely clasped as they rested in her lap, her wide-open, glowing eyes alone betraying the painful interest she felt in her son’s words.