“My dear fellow!” cried Mr. Hunstanton, with both hands held out, “my dear Pandolfini! I congratulate you! Well?—yes, of course, all’s well as I told you. They are as pleased as possible—say they never thought of such a thing, as all women do—but feel sure there never was anybody so good, and so perfect and delightful. Bless you, I knew it! They are as happy as you are, all in a flutter; and you are to go up at once.”
Pandolfini’s eager countenance was as a gamut of all emotions as his friend spoke—the blank of utter anxiety, the leap of hasty delight, the cloud of doubt: and withal a touch of fastidious and troubled dissatisfaction impossible to describe. He grasped and held Hunstanton’s hand, holding himself up by them, body and soul, and gazing at him with eyes that grew almost terrible in the strain.
“They!” he said, still breathless, with a long-drawn gasp, in a voice husky with agitation. “They? Who is—the other?”
“My dear fellow! You to ask such a thing with your Italian notions! Of course, her aunt! You might have done it, being the lover; but you don’t suppose I, an ambassador, could have made my proposals to little Sophy all alone! Love has turned your head.”
Pandolfini dropped his friend’s hands: a sudden darkness seemed to come over him and swallow him up. He staggered to the window, and stood there silent for a moment, looking blankly out.
CHAPTER XIII.
A SURPRISE.
Diana had begun to feel the influence of the Italian warmth, and that sweet penetrating sunshine which is happiness enough without any more active happiness, when there is no active suffering to neutralise it. She spent the whole morning in her balcony, or close by it. The balcony was full of flowers; the sounds outside came softened through the golden warmth of the air, in which voices and sounds of wheels, and clatter of hoofs and tinkle of bells, were all fused together into a homely music. It filled her with a sense of activity and living, though she was in reality doing nothing. As she sat idly among the flowers in the balcony, raising her head now and then, with the curiosity of true do-nothingness, when some special movement, something flitting across the level of her vision, attracted her, she could not but smile at herself. But it was not a common mood with Diana; it was a summer mood, to be indulged now and then, and bringing novelty with it. Summer in the depth of her own woods was still more sweet; but this affluence of life and movement, so magically hushed, soothed, harmonised by the warm atmosphere, was new to her. She leant back in her chair and trifled with a book, and indulged the curiosities of the moment, like any foolish idler capable of nothing better. The soft air held her entranced as in an atmosphere of serene leisure and pleasantness. But it was not the afternoon languor of the lotus-eater, through which there comes a vague sadness of renunciation, a “we will return no more.” Diana had never felt her life more warmly than as she sat, with an unconscious smile, absorbing into herself all that cheerful commotion of movement, idle if you please, but in sympathy with all the life and activity which was going on about. A friendly fellowship, a sense of kindness, was in her mind. It was all new and sweet to her, this quiet amid the world of sound, this soft spectatorship of humanity. She had toiled along these common paths in her day, and therefore understood it all better than any ordinary favourite of fortune could do: and this made her enter into everything with a genial fellow-feeling which it is difficult for those who have spent all their life on the higher levels, to possess. Had any emergency happened, Diana would have been as ready to help as any busy woman in the street. But this dolce far niente overcame all her usual activities, and lulled her very being. She had seen Pandolfini come in, and had waved her hand to him, not going back within doors, as he thought, but only subsiding among her flowers. After that little movement of friendly salutation she saw him go out some time after, rushing, with his head down, and without even a glance at her balcony. Was anything wrong? had anything happened? She was sympathetically disturbed for the moment; but, after all, she knew nothing of Mr. Pandolfini’s affairs, and the idea floated out of her mind. She had the friendliest feeling for the Italian—more, she had that half-flattered, half-sorry sense that he thought more of herself than could ever be recompensed to him, which often makes a woman almost remorsefully tender of a man for whom she has no love. But that he did not look up, that he rushed out of the room with his head down, might not that mean only that he was more occupied than usual? “I hope there is nothing wrong,” she said to herself; then dismissed him from her thoughts.
But a few minutes later Mrs. Hunstanton came in also, with a little rush. There was care, and many puckers upon her brow. She got quickly over the usual salutations, kissed Diana with an air distrait, and dashed at once into her subject. “Have you seen Pandolfini this morning?” she said. It was a bad habit she had, and which a woman, if she is not very much on her guard, is likely to take from her husband, to call men by their surnames. Mr. Hunstanton was not particular on this point.
“I saw him come in some time ago—and I saw him go out,” said Diana. “I see everything here. I have taken a lazy fit this morning: it is so pleasant——”
“But about Pandolfini,” her friend cried, interrupting her. “Diana, I am dreadfully frightened that Tom has been making a muddle. I am sure he has got a finger in the pie.”