CHAPTER XXXVI. MR. STOCMAR'S VISIT
It was not without trepidation that Mr. Stocmar presented himself, the morning after the events we have recorded, at the residence of Sir William Heathcote. His situation was, indeed, embarrassing; for not only had he broken faith with Mrs. Morris in permitting Paten to take his place at the ball, but as Paten had started for England that same night without even communicating with him, Stocmar was completely puzzled what to do, and how to comport himself.
That she would receive him haughtily, disdainfully even, he was fully prepared for; that she would reproach him—not very measuredly too—for his perfidy regarding Paten, he also expected. But even these difficulties were less than the embarrassment of not knowing how her meeting with Paten had been conducted, and to what results it had led. More than once did he stop in the street and deliberate with himself whether he should not turn back, hasten to his hotel, and leave Florence without meeting her. Nor was he quite able to say why he resisted this impulse, nor how it was that, in defiance of all his terrors, he found himself at length at her door.
The drawing-room into which he was shown was large and splendidly furnished. A conservatory opened from one end, and at the other a large folding glass door gave upon a spacious terrace, along which a double line of orange-trees formed an alley of delicious shade. Scarcely had Stocmar passed the threshold than a very silvery voice accosted him from without.
“Oh, do come here, dear Mr. Stocmar, and enjoy the delightful freshness of this terrace. Let me present a very old friend of my family to you,—Captain Holmes. He has just returned from India, and can give you the very latest news of the war.” And the gentlemen bowed, and smiled, and looked silly at each other. “Is not all this very charming, Mr. Stocmar?—at a season, too, when we should, in our own country, be gathering round coal-fires and screening ourselves from draughts. I am very angry with you,—very,” whispered she, as she gave him her hand to kiss, “and I am not at all sure if I mean ever to be friends with you again.”
And poor Mr. Stocmar bowed low and blushed, not through modesty, indeed, but delight, for he felt like the schoolboy who, dreading to be punished, hears he is to be rewarded.
“But I am forgiven, am I not?” muttered he.
“Hush! Be cautious,” whispered she. “Here comes Sir William Heathcote. Can't you imagine yourself to have known him long ago?”
The hint was enough; and as the old Baronet held out his hand with his accustomed warmth, Stocmar began a calculation of how many years had elapsed since he had first enjoyed the honor of shaking that hand. This is a sort of arithmetic elderly gentlemen have rather a liking for. It is suggestive of so many pleasant little platitudes about “long ago,” with anecdotic memories of poor dear Dick or Harry, that it rarely fails to interest and amuse. And so they discussed whether it was not in '38 or '39,—whether in spring or in autumn,—if Boulter—“poor Tom,” as they laughingly called him—had not just married the widow at that time; and, in fact, through the intervention of some mock dates and imaginary incidents, they became to each other like very old friends.