She was kissing the trunk in tender intoxication. “Give him this if you meet him, my love with golden hair. Tell him I will come to him when I get my diamond slippers and my chariot of silver. But they have to be made to order, and they are not ready yet—’Steban, I don’t want to be impolite, but you had really better be getting home.”
He gave her one last, long, lingering look and slipped down the trunk.
“Good-bye—till I see you again—farewell—adieu,” she called after him, “au revoir, heaven bless you—auf wiedersehen;” but he strode away without a backward glance.
CHAPTER XVI.
PERNICIOUS WORDS IMPREGNED WITH REASON.
Who that has visited has not suffered from the overattentiveness of too kind hosts?
The Forrests were so exceedingly good, so exceedingly devoted, so exceedingly painstaking, that Nina sometimes fled to the shelter of her own room and longed for anything—even some startling occurrence—to deliver her out of their hands. But she would not sound the note of her own deliverance: so for a few days longer she rambled about the proper, stiff garden that, however, had not had all beauty expressed out of it; helped Lady Forrest entertain her callers; went for drives with her or for long aimless walks with a servant always at her heels.
This latter proceeding she protested warmly against, but found herself running her head into a ukase of her husband. He had specially requested that she should never be permitted to go out unaccompanied, and perforce she must endure the society of Lady Forrest’s abigail, although she was longing for solitude, and the companionship only of her own new and exacting thoughts.
This evening, however, she was alone. Sir Hervey and Lady Forrest, after earnest protestations on her part that she should not suffer from loneliness during their absence, had been persuaded to go to the theatre; and, deeply thankful for the uninterrupted enjoyment of her own society, Nina sat drinking her after-dinner coffee in the drawing-room.