"Explain, explain."
"Do not trust yourself—do not believe that you can read a woman's heart from her behaviour—do not make the mistake I have made."
He refused to be more explicit, but Julius fancied he comprehended his meaning. With a truly human naïveté, Marmaduke imagined that as he had been deceived, his friend would likewise be so; and in perfect sincerity he counselled Julius not to believe in Rose's manner, because Violet's manner, as he supposed, had been deceptive to him.
To another the advice would have been idle; to Julius it was agitating, and confirmed him in his natural backwardness to believe a woman could fancy him: a backwardness which Rose's manner had of late so far overcome, that he had been several times on the point of declaring himself, and would I dare say have done so during their ride home, had not Marmaduke's earnest warning held him back.
Violet, pensive and sad, rode home occupied with her own thoughts: Marmaduke at her side scarcely making an observation. Rose, as gay and fascinating as before, noticed a change in Julius, but said nothing to him about it, as she suspected love was at the bottom.
"I have finished my third reading of Leopardi's poems," she said presently, "and like them more and more. Their constant sadness is a great charm to me—I suppose, because having no sorrows of my own, I love to indulge in imaginary woes."
"Yes," he replied, "tears were given to man to purify him. So natural is sorrow to us, that if we have it not, we invent it; the heart would dry up and wither, if it were not watered by the blessed fountain of pity. But Leopardi's sorrows were in excess, and became a mental disease. Smitten as he was in body, heart, and mind, by disease, slighted love, and scepticism, no wonder that his poems are melancholy."
"Was he then slighted in love?"
"He loved—loved twice—but each time the offering of his heart was rejected. What else could the poor hunchbacked, crippled poet, expect?"
"If he was a cripple, was he not a great poet? If his back was ill-shaped, was not his mind noble?"