"I am not quite sure," he said; and then he wondered why she said nothing about going to Rome with them. At last, when she saw the time had come, she said, carelessly:
"Lance, if you do not care about returning to England, come with us to Rome."
"I shall be delighted."
He looked up with an air of relief. After all, he could not see Leone until summer: why return to England and melancholy? He might just as well enjoy himself in Rome. He knew what select and brilliant circles his mother drew around her. Better for him to be the center of one of those than alone and solitary in England.
"Of course," said the countess, diplomatically, "I will not urge you, I leave it entirely to you. If you think what the fashion of the day calls your duties demand that you should return, do not let me detain you, even for one day."
"I have no particular duties," he said, half gloomily.
He would have liked his mother to have insisted on his going, to have been more imperative, but as she left it entirely to him, he thought her indifferent over the matter.
He was a true man. If she had pressed him to go, urged him, tried to persuade him, he would have gone back to England, and the tragedy of after years would never have happened. As it occurred to him that his mother simply gave the invitation out of politeness, and did not care whether he accepted or not, he decided on going. So when the festivities of Berlin were all ended, he wrote to Leone, saying that he was going to spend the winter with his parents in Rome; that if he could not spend it with her, it mattered little enough to him where is was; but that he was longing with all his heart for the thirtieth of June.