“On the contrary, she has often said to me, ‘Mind you now, I forbid you to leave me. Here comes that tiresome So-and-so.’ She cares as little about the custom as I do. What could be a better proof than her walking up to you, with five hundred people looking at her? Is that the custom for young girls in Rome?”
“Why, then, should she take such a step?”
“Because, as she sat there, it came into her head. That ‘s reason enough for her. I have imagined she wishes me well, as they say here—though she has never distinguished me in such a way as that!”
Madame Grandoni had foretold the truth; Mrs. Light, a couple of weeks later, convoked all Roman society to a brilliant ball. Rowland went late, and found the staircase so encumbered with flower-pots and servants that he was a long time making his way into the presence of the hostess. At last he approached her, as she stood making courtesies at the door, with her daughter by her side. Some of Mrs. Light’s courtesies were very low, for she had the happiness of receiving a number of the social potentates of the Roman world. She was rosy with triumph, to say nothing of a less metaphysical cause, and was evidently vastly contented with herself, with her company, and with the general promise of destiny. Her daughter was less overtly jubilant, and distributed her greetings with impartial frigidity. She had never been so beautiful. Dressed simply in vaporous white, relieved with half a dozen white roses, the perfection of her features and of her person and the mysterious depth of her expression seemed to glow with the white light of a splendid pearl. She recognized no one individually, and made her courtesy slowly, gravely, with her eyes on the ground. Rowland fancied that, as he stood before her, her obeisance was slightly exaggerated, as with an intention of irony; but he smiled philosophically to himself, and reflected, as he passed into the room, that, if she disliked him, he had nothing to reproach himself with. He walked about, had a few words with Miss Blanchard, who, with a fillet of cameos in her hair, was leaning on the arm of Mr. Leavenworth, and at last came upon the Cavaliere Giacosa, modestly stationed in a corner. The little gentleman’s coat-lappet was decorated with an enormous bouquet and his neck encased in a voluminous white handkerchief of the fashion of thirty years ago. His arms were folded, and he was surveying the scene with contracted eyelids, through which you saw the glitter of his intensely dark, vivacious pupil. He immediately embarked on an elaborate apology for not having yet manifested, as he felt it, his sense of the honor Rowland had done him.
“I am always on service with these ladies, you see,” he explained, “and that is a duty to which one would not willingly be faithless for an instant.”
“Evidently,” said Rowland, “you are a very devoted friend. Mrs. Light, in her situation, is very happy in having you.”
“We are old friends,” said the Cavaliere, gravely. “Old friends. I knew the signora many years ago, when she was the prettiest woman in Rome—or rather in Ancona, which is even better. The beautiful Christina, now, is perhaps the most beautiful young girl in Europe!”
“Very likely,” said Rowland.
“Very well, sir, I taught her to read; I guided her little hands to touch the piano keys.” And at these faded memories, the Cavaliere’s eyes glittered more brightly. Rowland half expected him to proceed, with a little flash of long-repressed passion, “And now—and now, sir, they treat me as you observed the other day!” But the Cavaliere only looked out at him keenly from among his wrinkles, and seemed to say, with all the vividness of the Italian glance, “Oh, I say nothing more. I am not so shallow as to complain!”
Evidently the Cavaliere was not shallow, and Rowland repeated respectfully, “You are a devoted friend.”