“Can I tell?” he answered, throwing up his hands and his shoulders with a characteristic gesture. “The curate never leaves his parish in my country. When he would have leisure, he takes it among the rest. A poor priest does not think of villeggiatura, what you call holidays. He is too poor——”
“But even the rector,” said Mrs. Norton, insisting. “Of course, if there is a very good curate—yes, yes, they are generally poor in England as well as in other places—a poor curate, that is what people are always saying; but even the rector. Of course, I forgot, I beg your pardon, your priests are never married, poor wretched men! What a bondage to put upon a man! don’t you think so, Mr. Pandolfini?”
He laughed; perhaps this little woman and her talk was a relief at the moment. He said: “I have my prejudices. Your English gentleman who is a curate, I do not know him. He is a clergyman: that is different. We may not judge one the other.”
“I don’t wish to judge any one; but surely, Mr. Pandolfini, anything so unnatural——”
“Not always unnatural. Me! I do not marry myself.”
“But you will one day,” said Mrs. Norton, decidedly. “Of course you will. Now, why should not you marry? I am sure you would be a great deal happier. Those who have not known what it is,” said the little lady with a sigh, “cannot be expected to realise—ah! the difference between being alone in the world and having some one to love you and care for you! Since I lost my dear husband, how changed life has been! Before that, I never did anything for myself; he stood between me and every trouble——”
“But in that way I think it would be better for a man not to have a wife,” cried Mrs. Hunstanton. “I dare say Mr. Pandolfini does not want to take a woman on his shoulders, and do everything for her. Tom does not stand between me and every trouble, I can tell you. He pushes a good share of his on to my shoulders, and gives me many a tangled skein to untwist. I never try to persuade my friends to marry; but you shouldn’t frighten them——”
“I—frighten them!” Mrs. Norton’s horror was too deep for words. “I think it is time for us to say good night,” she resumed, with dignity. “Will you look for my niece, Mr. Pandolfini, while I speak a word to Diana? I really cannot let my child be late to-night.”
“So that is how it is!” Mrs. Hunstanton said to herself: her husband had said the same, with an inward chuckle of satisfaction, and determination to “help it on” with all his might, not very long before; but in a very different sense. The lady’s surprisal of poor Pandolfini’s secret, however, was of so delicate a kind that her conclusion was very different. She hoped that she might never be tempted to betray him; and her sympathy was more despondent than hopeful. For Diana—Diana, of all people in the world! and yet Mrs. Hunstanton said to herself, though she was not romantic, There is nothing that persevering devotion may not do. In the long-run, even the dull adoration of young Snodgrass might touch a woman’s heart—who could tell? And Pandolfini was a very different person. Could anything be done for him? As she turned this over in her mind, he passed her, fulfilling Mrs. Norton’s commission, with Sophy, all pink and smiling, on his arm. Sophy was looking up in his face with that pretty air of trust and dependence which charms most men, but fills most women with hot indignation. Mrs. Hunstanton, like many other ladies, believed devoutly that flattery of this description was irresistible, and was always excited to a certain ferocity by the sight of it. Little flirt, little humbug! she said in her heart.
“Do you see them?” said her husband, coming up to her, rubbing his hands; “the very thing I have always wished—a nice sweet clinging little thing, just the wife for Pandolfini. Why, Hetty——”