"Yes, but you need not mind,"--her quick ear had caught the shade of annoyance in his voice,--"it is only poor Ferrara."
"Poor Ferrara? Ah, I see you have already guessed his secret."
"Who could help it when it was so very evident? Do you think Barbara will ever say yes?"
"I cannot tell. I sometimes hope so, but she is over-fastidious."
"Fastidious? Is that the term to use? Surely you would not have her marry him unless she loved him? To a woman like Barbara such a fate would be intolerable."
"I do not quite agree with you. You know that self-sacrifice is Miss Deering's greatest idea of happiness."
"I cannot comprehend it; truly I think I do not understand Barbara, though I do appreciate her and admire her. They have been expecting a visit from you for some time. Mr. Deering said he should ride over to your tower and look you up to-morrow."
"I have been very much occupied of late, or I should have paid my respects to you before this time. If you have heard anything about me, you must have heard that I am an undependable person, and never do the things which people expect of me. Besides, I am a hard-working creature, and not of the butterfly genus of man like our good Ferrara. Tell me a little how this new country strikes you. What a change it must be, this sudden transplantation from Venice to California!"
"I have suffered terribly. Ah! Mr. Graham, you who have known my Venice can feel for me. None of them here can understand it. I feel like a plant which has been torn suddenly from a garden beautiful with flowers and sunshine, gentle showers and happy birds, and placed with its roots all torn and bleeding on a barren mountain-side, with no flowers near it, only sturdy, useful herbs, which neither shrivel in the terrible sun, nor wither in the keen mountain winds. But I fade and die. There is no room for me in this great New World, where all are so busy and have so much work to do. The few beauties which they have, their blue skies and grand hills, they neither understand nor love. They have no time to look back into the glorious past with its memories; they know not how to seize the present with its actualities; they live and toil ever for the future, which they will not live to see. I have nought in common with them. I belong to the land of my birth, where the present is beautiful with the splendors of the past. What are my books, my studies, to these people? Nothing. They tolerate my eccentricity; they listen patronizingly to the tales of what has been; but they bemoan my wasted time, and would fain teach me to throw away my embroidery needle and learn to use their horrible sewing-machines. My music is my saving grace, but they approve of it more than they enjoy it."
Millicent spoke rapidly and with shining eyes. She had at last found a soul which, if not kindred to her own, was at least capable of an intelligent sympathy.