The Master pulled a note-book from his pocket, and, interrupting himself now and then to explain that he did it without his daughter's knowledge, began to read aloud some of Gabrie's sketches.
"Listen to this! See how cleverly she observes people! It's a character for a future novel. My Gabrie is always on the look-out. She sees a character, observes, sets it all down. She's like those careful housewives who preserve everything in case it may come in useful. Listen to this!"
And he read: "'A young lady of eighteen, of titled but worn-out family, anæmic, insincere, vain, envious, ambitious; knows how to hide her faults under a cold sweetness which appears natural. She is always talking of the aristocracy. Some one once told her she resembled a Virgin of Botticelli's, and ever since she has adopted a pose of sentiment and ecstasy.' Isn't it excellent, Signora Caterina?"
"Yes, indeed; quite excellent!" said the lady, with gentle acquiescence. "Regina, come and listen. Hear how Gabrie is going to write her novel. It's quite excellent."
Regina remembered the novel she also had wished to write, with which she was quite out of tune to-day. Her irritation increased. She had recognised the signorina from Sabbioneta in Gabrie's sketch, and resented the pretensions, the ambitions, the dreams of the Master's little daughter. The simple father's delusions were pitiable. Better tear them away and bid him teach his child to make herself a real life, refusing to send her forth into the world where the poor are swallowed up like straws in the pearly whirlpools of the river.
But in the faded eyes of the humble school-master she saw such glow of tenderness, of regret, of dream, that she had not the heart to rob him of his only wealth—Illusion.
"It's so dreadful to have no more illusions," she said to herself, and added that to-day there would come no telegram from Antonio.
As evening came on she again fell a prey to puerile terrors and unwholesome thoughts. She was wrapped in frozen shadows—a mysterious wind drove her towards a glacial atmosphere, where all was dizziness and grief. She seemed suspended thus in a twilight heaven, wafted towards an unknown land, like the little wandering clouds, the violet-grey birds, migrating without hope of rest. The old world to which she had returned had become small, melancholy, tiresome. She was no longer at her ease in it. But at last she was driven to confess a melancholy thing. It was not her old world which had changed; oh no! it was herself.