She next tried Gorman, and here her success was complete. All those womanly prettinesses, which are so many modes of displaying graceful attraction of voice, look, gesture, or attitude, were especially dear to him. Not only they gave beauty its chief charm, but they constituted a sort of game, whose address was quickness of eye, readiness of perception, prompt reply, and that refined tact that can follow out one thought in a conversation just as you follow a melody through a mass of variations.
Perhaps the young soldier did not yield himself the less readily to these captivations that Kate Kearney’s manner towards him was studiously cold and ceremonious.
‘The other girl is more like the old friend,’ muttered he, as he chatted on with her about Rome, and Florence, and Venice, imperceptibly gliding into the language which the names of places suggested.
‘If any had told me that I ever could have talked thus freely and openly with an Austrian soldier, I’d not have believed him,’ said she at length, ‘for all my sympathies in Italy were with the National party.’
‘But we were not the “Barbari” in your recollection, mademoiselle,’ said he. ‘We were out of Italy before you could have any feeling for either party.’
‘The tradition of all your cruelties has survived you, and I am sure, if you were wearing your white coat still, I’d hate you.’
‘You are giving me another reason to ask for a longer leave of absence,’ said he, bowing courteously.
‘And this leave of yours—how long does it last?’