"Oh, father!" cried Angela, "How can you think such a thing of Uncle
Felix! He is as nearly a saint as any mortal man can be!"
"So I always thought, child—so I always thought!" replied the Prince, with a vexed air, "But to perform such a miracle of healing as to cure a child with a twisted spine and bent legs, by the mere utterance of a prayer!—that is impossible!—impossible! It sounds like charlatanism—not like Felix!"
As he spoke he straightened himself and stood upright, a tall, spare, elegant figure of a man,—his dark complexioned face very much resembling a fine bronze cast of the Emperor Aurelius. Angela rose too and stood beside him, and his always more or less defiant eyes slowly softened as he looked at her.
"You grow very like your mother," he said, with just the faintest tremor in his voice—"Ah, la mia Gita!"
A sigh that was like a groan broke from his lips, and Angela laid her head caressingly against his breast in silence. He touched her soft hair tenderly.
"Very like your mother," he repeated, "Very like! But you will leave me soon, as she has left me,—not for Heaven, no!—but for that doubtful new life called marriage. It is not doubtful when there is love—love in both hearts;—and if there is any difference at all, the love should be greater on the man's side than on the woman's! Remember that, Angela mia, remember that! The true lover is always spiritually on his knees before the woman he loves; not only in passion, but in worship—in reverence!"
"And is not Florian so?" murmured Angela timidly.
"I do not know, child; he may be! Sometimes I think that he loves himself too much to love YOU as well as you deserve. But we shall see."
As he spoke a servant entered, carrying an exquisite basket of flowers, and brought it to Angela who blushed and smiled divinely as she took it and opened the envelope fastened to its handle and addressed to her, which contained merely these words,—
"A la mia dolcezza! Con voto d'eterno amore!
"FLORIAN."