“You would fight for Italy,” she said, “if there were a real chance?”
“If there were anything approaching a chance,” I responded, “I would fight for Italy.”
If I had dared I would have told her what was really at the bottom of my thought: I would have fought gladly for Italy; but the fact that it was her cause, that she espoused it and hoped for it, that her father had been buried alive for it, made it dearer to me than any other in the world. I had almost forgotten that we were not alone when the Baroness Bonnar proclaimed her presence.
“Italy!” she cried; and as I turned at the sound of her voice I saw her bring the palms of her gloved hands together and turn her fine eyes to the ceiling as if the word inspired her—“Italy! oh, if I were a man I would fight for Italy! Ah, those hateful Austrians! And what a man is Cavour! and what a man Garibaldi! Oh, they will fight! They will win!”
“There is plenty of time yet. Liberty, my dear Miss Rossano, will restore your father to health, and he will not lose his share of the glory.” We English always excuse a foreigner who shows a tendency to bombast in conversation; and allowing for her partial knowledge of the language, and for the oratorical turn her people have, I saw nothing overstrained in the little woman's raptures. I had even a modified belief in their reality; and even to this day I cannot blame myself for having been deceived by her. She had an astonishing capacity in her own line, and though she had achieved no great success on the stage, she was the most perfect actress off it I have ever known.
She showed no disposition to prolong her visit, but withdrew after a stay of a quarter of an hour or so, with many expressions of good-will and ardent hope for the count's early recovery. If she might have the honor, she would call again upon Miss Rossano.
“Pardon me,” she said; “beside you I am an old woman, and I can take a liberty. I like you for your interest in poor Italy and for your father's sake, who has been a martyr in such a cause. You will let me see you sometimes. People who know me better than you do will tell you that I am a butterfly, and without a heart. But that is not true. I do not show my heart often, and never unless I mean it.”
She was gone without waiting for a response, and Miss Rossano, turning to me with a blush and a smile, asked me if I did not consider her visitor quite a charming little person. It would have been ungracious on no evidence at all to have stated my real mind, and I compromised by saying nothing. My silence on that topic went unobserved; and until I took my leave we talked about the count and the prospects of The Cause. It makes me smile now to remember how savagely in earnest I grew to be about that matter of Italian independence when once I had discovered that Miss Rossano was seriously interested in it. That, if I had only thought about it, was the way to her heart; but anxious as I was to secure her good opinion, I was guilty of no pretences. The mere fact that she desired it would have been enough to make me desire it also, even if I had had no wishes that way to begin with.
“Captain Fyffe,” said Miss Rossano, suddenly, in the midst of our enthusiastic talk upon this theme, “I am going to ask you a favor. I know very little of my father as yet. I have not spent twelve hours in his society, but it is easy to find out two things about it: he will be mad to join in any effort that The Cause may make, and—”
She paused there, with a look of semi-embarrassment.