“I do not know that very much is the matter,” he answered deliberately, “but perhaps I ought to tell you that I fear you are going to have a big disappointment. As you are such a clever woman, as well as an unscrupulous woman,” he laughed disagreeably, “very often what you desire to happen does happen. But as regards Lily Fairfield you are destined to meet with failure.”
The Countess felt a shock go through her. Instinctively she put her hand on her heart. But she answered him at once, in a calm, good-humoured tone:
“You are such a child, Beppo! And like most young men you are vain and impatient. I never supposed that Lily would fall into your arms at once, as no doubt a great many pretty ladies have done ere now! Believe me, when you are married to her you will be glad that she was not what you want to find her now—eager and ready to be made love to. Perhaps without knowing it you have startled her. English girls are sometimes very prudish, you know.”
The Countess was looking fixedly at her son, and she saw that she had guessed right. They had evidently had some kind of a scene yesterday.
“I allowed you to behave à l’Anglaise,” she went on—“I mean taking those walks and drives together—because I thought I could trust to your good sense. But I fear I was wrong, Beppo.”
“I lose my head when I am with Lily!” he exclaimed. “Her coldness excites me! I do not want to make a mystery about it, mamma. I see you have guessed that I was a fool!”
As he saw a look of keen dismay come over her face, he added lightly: “Nothing very much happened. But yes, it is true that while we were out yesterday we had something of a quarrel. I told her that if she refused to let me kiss her I would send the car over the edge of the precipice!”
He saw the colour recede from his mother’s face. She suddenly looked like an old woman—old, and desperately tired. He felt queerly touched.
“Come, come, mamma, don’t be frightened! Years ago, when I was younger, I might have been so mad, but I am an older and a wiser man now.”
“Then you did not kiss her?”