"Her heart is hidden; but there is that in her eyes that tells me to hope."
"And what about me?"
"Alas! Love is selfish. But you are the last I would seek to hurt or to rob. You have been very good to me and Madonna loves you. It is certain that if the very best happened, she would do nothing to offend one who has been to her as you have been."
"We can stow the subject for six months anyhow," replied Bendigo, lighting his long clay. "I suppose, in your country as well as mine, there's a right and a wrong way to approach a woman; and seeing my girl's a widow—made so under peculiarly sad circumstances—you'll understand that love talk is out of the question for a good bit yet a while."
"Most truly you speak. I hide even the fire in my eyes. I only dare look at her between the lids."
"There's a lot goes to Jenny, and no doubt such a keen blade as you knows that very well. But all's in the air at present. Her husband left no will and that means, since there's nobody else with any claim upon him, she has all his dough—five hundred a year perhaps. But there's much more to her than that in the long run. My brother Albert and I are both old bachelors with nobody so near us as Jenny. In fact you may say that if all goes right, she'll be pretty flush some day. Not enough to waste on ruined castles, but a mighty good income none the less. Then there's poor Bob's money; for however it falls out with him, it don't look as though he'd spend it now."
"All this is wind in the trees and the cackling of hens to me," declared Doria. "I have not thought about it and I do not want to think about it. The criterion of love, such as I feel to Jenny, is that nothing else weighs a mustard seed in the balance against it. If she were a pauper, or if she owned millions, my attitude of heart is not changed. I worship her with the whole of myself—so that there is not a cranny left in my spirit where hunger for money can find foothold, or fear of poverty exist. Happiness never depends upon cash, or the lack of it; but without love no real happiness shall be found in the world."
"That may be bunkum, or it may be God's truth—I don't know. I've never been in love and nobody ever wasted an ounce of affection on me," replied Redmayne. "But you've heard me now. You can sit on the safety valve for six months anyway; and it will probably pay you best to do so; for one thing's certain: Jenny won't love you any better for making love under present circumstances."
"It is too true," answered the other. "Trust me. I will hide my soul and be exquisitely cautious. Her sorrow shall be respected—from no selfish motive only, but because I am a gentleman, as you remind me."
"Youth's youth, and you Italians have a good deal more fire kneaded into you than us northerners."