And thereupon (oh, fatuity!) I strode up and down her floor, and narrated the whole history of my desperate, my fatal passion for Elsie Milray: how beautiful Elsie was, how mysteriously, incommunicably fascinating; how I had adored her; how she had encouraged me, led me on, trifled with me, and finally thrown me over—for Captain Bullen, a fellow in the Engineers, old enough to be—well, almost old enough to be her father. I fancy I swung my arms about a good deal, and quoted Heine and Rossetti, and generally made myself very tiresome and ridiculous; but my kind confidante listened with patience, with every appearance of taking my narration seriously.
“So you see,” I concluded, “I’ve been hard hit, hit in a vital spot. My wound is one of those that never heal.”
Even that did not provoke her to laughter. She gazed at me meditatively for a moment, and then she shook her head. “Your wound will heal. When our wounds are fresh, it always seems as if they would never heal. But they do heal. Yours will heal. You must try to think of other things. You must try to interest yourself in other girls—oh, platonically, I mean, of course. There are lots of nice girls in the world, you know. You must try not to think of Elsie. It’s no good thinking of her, now that she’s engaged to Captain Bullen. But—but when you can’t help thinking of her, then you must come to me and talk it out. That is always better, healthier, than brooding upon a grief in silence. You must come to me whenever you feel you wish to. I shall always be glad when you come.”
“You’re a—you’re an angel of kindness,” I declared, with emotion. “I—I was thinking only the other day, when you had driven me home from the Borghese, I was thinking that, except my own mother, you’re the—the best and dearest woman in the world.”
But at this, she could be grave no longer. She laughed gaily. “If I come next to your mother in your affections,” she said, “it’s almost as if I were your grandmother, isn’t it? Yes, that is it. I’ll be a grandmother to you.” And she made me a comical little moue.
After that, it was my excellent fortune to see the Contessa Bracca rather frequently. I called on her a good deal; she asked me to dine and lunch with her a good deal; I spent a surprising number of afternoons and evenings in her blue-and-white retiring-room. Then she used to take me to drive with her in the Villa Borghese or on the Pincian; and sometimes we would go for walks together in the Campagna. Of course, I was a regular visitor in her box at the opera: otherwise, the land had not been Italy, nor the town Rome. I liked her and enjoyed her inexpressibly; she was so witty and lively, so sympathetic, such a frank good comrade; she was so pretty and delicate and distinguished. “I can never make you understand,” I confessed to her, “how much fuller and richer and more delightful life is since I have known you.” I was, in fact, quite improbably happy, though I scarcely suspected it at the time. I had not forgotten that my rôle was the disconsolate lover; I must still now and again perorate about Elsie, and grieve over my painted wounds. The Contessa always listened patiently, with an air of commiseration. And I read her every line I wrote (poor woman!) whilst she criticised, suggested, encouraged. The calf is a queer animal.
You may wonder how she managed to put up with me, why I did not bore her to extermination. I can’t answer—unless, indeed, it was simply that she had a sense of humour, as well as a kind heart. I am glad to be able to remember, besides, that our talks were by no means confined to subjects that had their source in my callow egotism. We talked of many things, we talked of everything: of books, pictures, music; of life, nature, religion; of Rome, its churches and palaces, its galleries and gardens; of people, of the people we knew in common, of their traits, their qualities, defects, absurdities. We talked of everything; sometimes—but all too infrequently—we talked of her. All too infrequently. I can’t think how she contrived it; she was as far as possible from giving the impression of being reserved with me; yet, somehow, it was very seldom indeed that we talked of her. Somehow, for the most part—with no sign of effort, easily, imperceptibly even—she avoided or evaded the subject, or turned it if it was introduced. Only, once in a long while, once in a long, long while, she would, just for an instant, as it were, lift a corner of the curtain; tell me some little anecdote, some little incident, out of her life; allow me never so fleeting a glimpse into the more intimate regions of her experience.
One day, for example, one afternoon in February, when a faint breath of spring was on the air, we had driven out to Acqua Acetosa, and there we had left her carriage and strolled in the open country, plucking armfuls of flowers, anemones, jonquils, competing with each other to see who could gather the greatest number in the fewest minutes, and laughing and romping mirthfully. Her hair had got into some disarray, her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled; and her face looked so young, so young, that I exclaimed, “Do you know, you are exactly like a girl to-day. I told you once that you were the nicest woman I had ever known; but to-day I shall have to take that back, and tell you you’re the nicest girl.”
She laughed, sweetly, joyously. “I am a girl to-day,” she said. But then, all at once, her eyes became sober, thoughtful; there was even a shadow of trouble in them. “You see, I never was really a girl,” she went on. “I am living my girlhood now—as a kind of accidental after-thought—because I have happened to make friends with a boy. I am sowing my wild oats—gathering my wild flowers—at the eleventh hour.”