“Oh,” with a funny little air of superiority, “one does not think of telling.”
Rosa pressed Violante tight in her arms, and set her lips hard, and when she spoke it was very low and steadily.
“My child, you know how I love you, that I only think how to make you happy. Mr Crichton had no right to play with you so; but it was my fault for letting you be thrown in his way. Young men will do those things, just to amuse themselves.”
“Some will.”
“Some?” said Rosa bitterly. “You little foreign girl—he would think of you just as of a pretty flower, to please him for a time, and then he will go home and leave you to repent that you have ever known him!”
“Never—never,” cried Violante, clasping her hands. “Never—if my heart should break.”
Rosa stamped her foot, and hot, cruel tears, that burnt as they fell, half choked her.
“I dare say he has never thought that you would take what he said seriously. If he likes you, he could not marry you—he must marry some English girl of his own rank. You must put him out of your head, and I must take better care of you.”
Violante’s views of the future were scarcely so definite as these words implied, but she shivered, and a chill fell on her spirits.
“Now,” said Rosa, “I believe Signor Vasari does really care for you.”