Barbara's strength gradually returned. In a day or two she was able to stand, and, leaning upon Paul's arm, she walked to and fro in the immediate vicinity of the castle. These promenades were soon lengthened into rambles along the seashore or through the fragrant pine woods, Paul being her constant companion. She had taken his arm at first from weakness; she now continued to do so from habit.
As his knowledge of Barbara increased Paul discovered that she had received an extraordinary education, her course of study having been as remarkable for what it omitted as for what it contained. While knowing very little of poetry, painting, music, needle-work, and other accomplishments usually included in the feminine curriculum, she was nevertheless well versed in mathematics, logic, and "the dismal science," to wit, political economy. Classic antiquity was almost a sealed book to her, but modern history and current continental politics she had at her finger-tips, and her knowledge of royal and noble genealogies with all their ramifications might have put a herald to the blush. She could give the biographies, and the characteristic foibles, of all the leading statesmen of Europe; was mistress of several modern languages, notably Polish or Russian, and—most puzzling circumstance of all—she was quite au fait with the mysteries and subtleties of Catholic theology.
As she could scarcely have passed her twentieth year, it seemed to Paul that Barbara, in view of her extensive acquirements, must have commenced her studies so soon as she had quitted her cradle.
Her intellectual training appeared more adapted to the acquirements of a ruler, a statesman, or an ambassador than to those of an ordinary young lady; and Paul puzzled himself to account for the aims of those who had directed her education, for Barbara herself volunteered no information on the matter, and still maintained an attitude of reticence as to her past life.
CHAPTER IV
THE SEALED CHAMBER
When, amid the most enchanting scenery to be found in Europe, and at a time when all the charms of summer are poured upon the earth, a handsome young captain is brought into companionship with a youthful woman, whose intellect charms even more than her beauty; and when the pair dwell isolated from the rest of the world with nothing to divert attention from each other, it requires no prophet to predict the result.
Barbara was now out of her convalescent stage; and, therefore, neither she nor Paul had any valid excuse for remaining longer at Castel Nuovo; nevertheless they continued to postpone indefinitely the day of departure.
Paul completely ignored the regiment at Corfu, and the good uncle, who was doubtless fuming at his nephew's protracted absence; and Barbara on her part seemed to have forgotten her pursuers from the convent, and her desire for the protection of the British flag.
Enwrapped in each other, yielding to the delicious spirit of dolce far niente, the pair were leading an idyllian life.