Having thus reasoned with herself, Mildred watched for an opportunity to speak to Castellani. She had not long to wait. He called rather earlier than usual one afternoon, when Pamela had gone out for a mountain ramble with her dog and her maid, to search for those doubly precious flowers which bloom with the first breath of spring. Castellani had seen the young lady leave the hotel soon after the midday meal, armed with her alpenstock, and accompanied by her attendant carrying a basket. She had fondly hoped that he would offer to join her expedition, to dig out delicate ferns from sheltered recesses, to hunt for mountain hyacinths and many-hued anemones; but he observed her departure perdu behind a window-curtain in the reading-room, and half-an-hour afterwards he was ushered into Mrs. Greswold’s drawing-room.
“I feared you were ill,” he said, “as I saw Miss Ransome excursionising without you.”
“I have a slight headache, and felt more inclined for a book than for a long walk. Why did you not go with Pamela? I daresay she would have been glad of your company. Peterson is not a lively companion for a mountain ramble.”
“Poor Miss Ransome! How sad to be a young English Mees, and to have to be chaperoned by a person like Peterson!” said Castellani, with a careless shrug. “No, I had no inclination to join in the anemone hunt. Miss Ransome told me yesterday what she was going to do. I have no passion for wild flowers or romantic walks.”
“But you seem to have a great liking for Miss Ransome’s society,” replied Mildred gravely. “You have cultivated it very assiduously since you came here, and I think I may be excused for fancying that you came to Pallanza on her account.”
“You may be excused for thinking anything wild and improbable, because you are a woman and wilfully blind,” he answered, drawing his chair a little nearer to hers, and lowering his voice with a touch of tenderness. “But surely—surely you cannot think that I came to Pallanza on Miss Ransome’s account?”
“I might not have thought so had you been a less frequent visitor in this room, where you have come—pardon me for saying so—very much of your own accord. I don’t think it was quite delicate or honourable to come here so often, to be so continually in the society of a frank, impressionable girl, unless you had some deeper feeling for her than casual admiration.”
“Mrs. Greswold, upon my honour I have never in the whole course of my acquaintance with Miss Ransome by one word or tone implied any warmer feeling than that which you call casual admiration.”
“And you are not attached to her? you do not cherish the hope of winning her for your wife?” asked Mildred seriously, looking at him with earnest eyes.
That calm, grave look chilled him to the core of his heart. His brow flushed, his eyes grew dark and troubled. He felt as if the crisis of his life were approaching, and augury was unfavourable.