“Oh, Paolina, I am so unhappy,” Ruth said, simply. “But leave me,” she smiled to the girl through her tears, “I will call you when I feel better.”
Paolina turned to go, then came back, lifted Ruth's hand, kissed it. “I hope you will pardon me, Signorina,” she added shyly, “Scusi, if I say, we must always smile, it pleases God better.”
And Paolina left the room.
For a long while, Ruth, quite still, battled with her feelings. A fresh passion of grief overtook her.... When at last it had spent itself, she drew her Rosary, which she carried in the gold bag in her hand, from its sheath. Slowly, the sweetness of the five decades passed into her spirit, she felt comforted. Peace filled her heart. There was only, now and then, the ache, where before there had been uncontrollable despair. She stood up, bathed her face, rang for Paolina, and began removing the tortoise-shell pins from her hair.
“Paolina,” she cried, as the maid entered the room. “Paolina,” she twisted her hair again into its thick coil, “we are going to enjoy ourselves now! No more tears, no more regrets. You are quite right. We must smile to the good God if we wish Him to smile on us! Make haste and give me a short skirt and a warm coat, and my cap and veil. I long to get out and breathe the air and fill my eyes with a sight of the shores of Italy.”
At dinner and during the rest of the evening, as they steamed down the coast towards Naples, Ruth was an irresistible precis of smiles and vivacity. The Bolingbrokes were captivated.
“Richard,” the young Mrs. Bolingbroke told her lord when they were alone together, “that Miss Adgate is a most charmin' girl. What was that nonsense Mrs. Wilberton retailed about her runnin' away from Henry Pontycroft whom she's hopelessly in love with? She is in love with no man! You can't deceive me!” Mrs. Bolingbroke cried gaily. “It's easy to see from the fun she's positively bubblin' over with that her heart isn't weighted by any hopeless passion. She's never been in America before she says, and it's the great adventure of her life.... She's goin' to visit an old uncle, whom she's never seen but adores. Her childlike enjoyment of doin' it quite alone (she has her maid with her) and her eagerness about it, is quite fascinatin'. Although she is so rich, she's evidently seen very little of the world,” said Mrs. Bolingbroke, who happened to be a year Ruth's junior, but had the feeling of knowing the world thoroughly from within and from without.
“Yes,” her husband answered guardedly; he remembered that a First Secretary must show diplomatic reticence in his judgments, even to his wife. “Yes, Miss Adgate does seem rather a decent sort. I dare say the story is all a fabrication. She does seem a nice sort of unsophisticated young creature and I dare say the story's all a fabrication. Just the pretty charitable way people have of talking. I can see no objection to your enjoying as much of her society as you like, Isabel.”
Thus it happened that safe in her husband's blessing upon the friendship, Mrs. Bolingbroke, all unsuspected by Ruth, became her champion.