Arthur’s involuntary laugh at her naïve statement died away as her question recalled the very sweetest, brightest picture of his English Mysie, in her white Sunday dress, walking down the churchyard path.
For long weeks he had never spoken of her, never seen anyone who had ever heard her name. He felt a strange impulse to speak of her now, to hear of her, though it could only be from his own lips. It was easier to do so in the simple language necessary to make Violante understand so unfamiliar a picture, and to an auditor who would, he thought, only receive the impression that he chose to give.
“I knew an English girl,” he said; and, leaning on the wall, with his face turned away, he tried to describe Mysie’s Sunday—how she “taught the little peasants,” “went to church,” “sang hymns,” “walked about among the flowers,” it had all been very commonplace once, but as Arthur told it now it sounded to him like the Lives of the Saints.
“And she is dead?” said Violante, softly.
“How can you tell?” he exclaimed, astonished.
“Ah, signor, it was in the sound of your voice,” she answered, with an interest that would have been how greatly intensified had she known to whom she was speaking.
“Yes, you are right,” said Arthur, and something in his voice, repressed and almost stern, made Violante start and flush and quiver, for he spoke with the very tone of “Signor Hugo.”
Neither for a moment noticed the other, and then Arthur, perceiving that she was agitated, and not wishing to say more about himself, said kindly:
“I hope you will be a very happy ‘English girl,’ signorina.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Violante, “there is too much in the world for happiness.”