“Read that, madame,” said Upton, as he once more found himself alone with the Princess; “you will see that all your plans are disconcerted. He is off to Florence.”
Madame de Sabloukoff read the note, and threw it carelessly on the table. “He wants to forgive himself, and only hesitates how to do so gracefully,” said she, sneeringly.
“I think you are less than just to him,” said Upton, mildly; “his is a noble nature, disfigured by one grand defect.”
“Your national character, like your language, is so full of incongruities and contradictions that I am not ashamed to own myself unequal to master it; but it strikes me that both one and the other usurp freedoms that are not permitted to others. At all events, I am rejoiced that he has gone. It is the most wearisome thing in life to negotiate with one too near you. Diplomacy of even the humblest kind requires distance.”
“You agree with the duellist, I perceive,” said he, laughing, “that twelve paces is a more fatal distance than across a handkerchief: proximity begets tremor.”
“You have guessed my meaning correctly,” said she; “meanwhile, I must write to her not to come here. Shall I say that we will be in Florence in a day or two?”
“I was just thinking of those Serravezza springs,” said Upton; “they contain a bi-chloride of potash, which Staub, in his treatise, says, 'is the element wanting in all nervous organizations.'”
“But remember the season,—we are in mid-winter; the hotels are closed.”
“The springs are running, Princess; 'the earth,' as Mos-chus says, 'is a mother that never ceases to nourish.' I do suspect I need a little nursing.”
The Princess understood him thoroughly. She well knew that whenever the affairs of Europe followed an unbroken track, without anything eventful or interesting, Sir Horace fell back upon his maladies for matter of occupation. She had, however, now occasion for his advice and counsel, and by no means concurred in his plan of spending some days, if not weeks, in the dreary mountain solitudes of Serravezza. “You must certainly consult Zanetti before you venture on these waters,” said she; “they are highly dangerous if taken without the greatest circumspection;” and she gave a catalogue of imaginary calamities which had befallen various illustrious and gifted individuals, to which Upton listened with profound attention.