“Eccola—Brava, brava! Mademoiselle learns quickly. She wants other ladies’ bouquets, not content with her own!”
“Mademoiselle’s thoughts are elsewhere than on the stage,” sneered Masetto.
“All—it is a love token! Is it il Signor Inglese? Ah, ha, ha!”
Violante, in an agony of shame at her own folly, with burning cheeks and beating heart, shrank away without a word; but when she reached home and could hide her face on Rosa’s shoulder, her first words were—
“Oh, my flowers, my flowers!” and when Rosa understood the story she could give no adequate consolation.
“Oh, child—child!” she cried at last, “do not sob and cry in this way. Who ever cured their troubles so? Now I will not have it. Perhaps he did not throw the flowers after all! Lie down and go to sleep.”
Violante endeavoured to obey; she put the damp tumbled hair off her face, and lay down and closed her eyes. “But he did throw them,” she thought to herself; but she did not say so to Rosa, for her sorrow was beginning to give the child a stand-point of her own.
Hugh, meanwhile, was the victim of circumstances. Mrs Tollemache had planned an excursion, which carried them off early on the morning after the first opera, and from which they did not return till late in the evening of the second day. Hugh was annoyed; but he knew that he should have other opportunities of seeing Violante, and he could not escape without more commotion than was expedient. So he went and enjoyed himself all the more, because the excitement of his whole nature made him more than usually open to enjoyment. Hugh had never thought scenery so beautiful or sights so interesting; he was ready to be amused by every trifling incident of their trip. He knew that Violante would be there when he came back; while she, poor child, knew nothing. But he managed to look in at the end of the opera and throw his bouquet; and on the next day he thought no one could have objected to his making a visit of enquiry, particularly as most likely Violante would not be at home. James’s remarks had not been without their effect, in so far as they increased his desire to act with the greatest possible tact and caution; and he much wished to secure his mother’s consent, certainly before any public disturbance took place, and even, if possible, before actually engaging himself to Violante, and this for her sake. He had no dreams of hiding himself from the world with her: he could do no other than follow his profession, and live with his wife in the midst of his friends. In short, Hugh wished to eat his cake and have it—to do a wild, foolish, utterly romantic thing, and yet sacrifice no conventional or real advantage. And he had quite sense enough to know that conventional advantages were real in this case, and quite confidence enough in himself to believe that, he, in his wisdom, could succeed in doing what most other men had failed in attempting.
“There shall be no secrecy and no quarrelling,” he thought; “and yet I will judge for myself.”
However, this evening, politeness would have prompted a call on Signor Mattei had Violante never existed; and as Jem had promised to take some drive with the Tollemaches it was not worth while to ask for his company; so he asked if Signor Mattei was at home. “No—il signor was out.”