“No, it was very foolish,” said Phillis, looking with compunction at Bice’s pale face. “Are you sure you are not chilled? Let us set off at once.”
“But you yourself?” said Jack, in a low voice.
Something in his tone made her flush crimson, and then she hated herself for having done so. “As if I had not already suffered enough for such foolish imaginings!” she thought reproachfully.
It was an odd sort of walk home for all of them, and would have been more uncomfortable but that the things around gave ready subjects for conversation. After the Arch of Titus and the Forum there are dirty, shelving, picturesque streets, noble fronts of old temples half buried in the earth, curiosity shops full of ancient and begrimed lamps of all graceful forms, of which, if you look long enough, you may one day light upon the manufactory. Grey oxen come stumbling along over the slippery lava pavement; very likely a Capuchin monk, brown and dirty, vanishes round a corner; the streets fall away for Adrian’s forum and the great pillar, and close up again until you come to the piazza of the Apostoli. It was there the Capponis lived with whom the Masters were staying. The palazzo was not so large or imposing as its neighbours; such as it was it was too big for its owners’ fortunes, and they let half of it to some English, consoling themselves by preserving a separate entrance and cordially despising their rich tenants. Phillis thought it looked very grey and gloomy as Bice stood for a moment in the entrance, and yet the girl’s loveliness struck them both. Perhaps it was partly the delightful charm of youth, and its contrast with the grim buildings; perhaps it was that the talk with Phillis, or the walk home, had brought a rosy flush into her cheeks, a bright light into her eyes. For the moment she was like the Hebe Jack had discovered on the hillside behind Florence.
But, for all that, he would not have spoken of her to Phillis unless Phillis had begun the subject, having an uneasy consciousness that here lay the key to the mystery of his rejection. The way in which this rejection haunted him astonished himself. He allowed that he had been piqued, but there is little doubt that he fancied the pique would have spent itself, and left him free; instead of which he could not shake off the vexation and the annoyance. As often as not he was angry with Phillis, and, but that he was a gentleman, would have shown it. As it was, he often perplexed her, and such a tête-à-tête as they were having now she avoided simply from the pain it caused herself. She was one of those people who try to do what is right with a brave disregard for the pain which may be a necessary part, but she did not go out of her way to court it. Only to-day she had a purpose, and it must be carried out in the few narrow and crowded streets which lay between them and the Condotti.
“If I were a man,” she said thoughtfully, “I should like to do something for that poor child.”
“A man,” repeated Jack. “Is it man in the abstract, or any particular man who is needed?”
“Well, he must be particular because he must be ready to take some trouble, and when the trouble is taken he must have wits to use its results, otherwise he might be as abstract as you please.”
“Is it this wretched brother who has come to the fore again?”
“I have a theory that he is not so wretched as we take for granted. I dare say he has been foolish.”