“Oh, no fear,” said Kitty. “We can just let each other alone if we don’t.”
These good-natured girls fully intended their cousins to have a fair share of all their little amusements and excitements, including the admiration of their acquaintances and the possibility—it seemed a very distant one for these foreign, penniless girls—of admiration growing to something more, where the ground was not preoccupied. But, at any rate, Rosa and Violante should have their share of attention and pleasure, and should do their share in making the house and drawing-room the most agreeable in Kensington.
Being so agreeable, it was not strange that James Crichton, the most sociable of civil servants, should put it on his list of pleasant houses for dropping in at; since his own lodgings were about the last place where Jem ever thought of spending an evening; but it was, perhaps, a curious turn of fate that brought him to the Greys on this particular occasion, with some tickets for a popular play, right into the midst of the discussion on the Italian cousins. James had so many acquaintances in all sorts of worlds, that he had always orders and tickets, magazines and new books, with which to repay the civilities of his friends; and he was proceeding to criticise the actress whom they were going to see when Mary Grey said:
“We must take Violante.”
Jem’s attention was so evidently arrested by the name that Mrs Grey said:
“We are expecting some Italian cousins, Mr Crichton. My husband’s sister married an Italian gentleman devoted to music. His daughters, Rosa and Violante Mattei, are coming to stay with us. We expect them to-night.”
Words would fail to express James’s utter amazement. He said:
“Indeed—exactly so. Are they?” in tones of conventional interest. He would have been scarcely more surprised if the blue china cat on the cabinet before him had jumped off and purred in his face.
The solemn and sorrowful events that had occurred since his tour in Italy had greatly obliterated from his mind the recollection of his brother’s holiday romance. It seemed to have no connection with anything that had come before or after it; and James was of opinion that they were all well out of a great difficulty in which Hugh’s inconvenient intensity of feeling had nearly plunged them. His remembrance had been revived by Arthur’s letter about Violante, which he had answered with great caution, merely stating that he had seen Violante act, and that Hugh had attended her father’s singing classes—the last place where Arthur would have expected to hear of him. For Jem regarded Hugh with some awe, and Hugh’s feelings as a sort of tinder that might flame up on the smallest provocation. But evidently she had not married the manager, whom James had frequently blessed in his heart as a perfect safeguard. What would Hugh say when he knew this—would Arthur tell him? James was not in the habit of corresponding with Hugh; if he wrote him a letter on purpose it would look as if he thought the encounter of consequence. However, as the letter was consolatory as regarded Arthur’s health and spirits, he satisfied his conscience by sending it on to Hugh, merely writing across it, “Odd, isn’t it? How people do turn up!” and Hugh had made no response to the communication at all!
But this turn of affairs was certainly odder still.