“Is it not this harmony in diversity that makes the sweetest union?” said Mrs. Norton, rising into eloquence. “Oh yes, it is so! Ah, my dear, I am not so clever as you, but there is something in experience that is never taught in books. I saw it all along. I perceived that dear Mr. Pandolfini’s delightful mind felt the refreshment of innocence like my Sophy’s. He always kept his eye upon her. Often I have been surprised at it, how he should find out just when we wanted anything, just when he could be of use; not always at her side, as a young man would have been, but keeping his eye on her. Ah! that unobtrusive unselfish love is always the deepest, and it is but few girls that call it forth. She ought to be very proud of such devotion: but I saw it all along.”
Diana listened with her mind in a maze. Perhaps it was all true. Mrs. Norton’s instincts, her watchful maternal eye, and that minute observation in which gentle gossips excel, how should these have been deceived? Yes, yes, no doubt she must be right; and in that case what a vain self-admirer, what an absurd self-deceiver must Diana be! She was filled with such lively shame that it closed her lips. That she should have thought it was herself on whom Mr. Pandolfini’s heart was set, and that it should turn out to be Sophy! That she should be so sorry for him, driven to betray herself out of tender pity for him, when, lo, it turned out that he was the happiest man in the world! Once more Diana laughed, coming round to see the comical aspect of her own confusion—for, after all, this did not matter to anybody but herself. And there was the greatest relief as well as a little disappointment in finding that the object of her unnecessary pity could so easily make himself happy, and had no need to be pitied—which was the drollest conclusion. “Pardon me for laughing,” she said; “indeed I hope they will both be very happy. It is not ridicule but surprise.”
“Ridicule! Oh no, there is no ground for ridicule,” said Mrs. Norton. “It is the most natural thing in the world to me. I have seen it all along.”
CHAPTER XIV.
DESPAIR.
Pandolfini rushed out of the house in a state of misery and despair impossible to describe. He had not made any explanation to Mr. Hunstanton of the real state of affairs. He was struck dumb; the earth seemed to open under his feet, and everything solid in the world to melt away. He stood giddy and miserable on the edge of this precipice, feeling that he did not dare to take any further step one way or another. The dilemma in which he found himself seemed more terrible than anything that had ever befallen mortal man. In the first place, Diana was lost to him, there had never been any hope for him; all his delicious fancies of last night had been dreams founded on a lie. She had never thought of him, never considered him as more than an acquaintance: it was all a fiction, all a delusion, upon which his momentary but ecstatic hopes had been built. For the moment this crushed him almost more than the other practical side of the mistake, which he did not realise. Twenty-four hours before he had known equally that Diana was out of his reach, that for him to seek her was folly, that, however he might love, he must go upon his way, and make no sign: and that this brief climax of life to him, this love-dream, this unexpected undesired revelation of a something in existence which might have been higher than his sweetest hopes, and dearer than his dearest dreams—was nothing, a passing vision of no real importance to him or to any one. He had known this very well yesterday; but it was infinitely more bitter to him to-day. Then indeed he had felt as if everything worth living for would go away with her, as if life would be utterly blank to him, without meaning or grace—but he had faced the blank, mournfully yet manfully, knowing that nothing better could be.
Now, however, after he had been led to deceive himself, had been forced into it, after such resistance as he was capable of making to an apparent joy which was the crown of all possible and impossible wishes, now!—— The bitterness, the keen sting of disappointment, the resentment with himself for ever having consented to this delusion, all mingled with and intensified the insupportable pang that tore him asunder, the sense that it was all illusion, that no one save himself in his folly had ever thought of Diana as his object: that she had known nothing of his love, and had not even given him the hearing, the consideration, which were implied in a refusal. This it was that wounded him most wildly, driving him almost mad with its sting. Had she refused to listen to his suit, yet she would have known it at least, would have been aware that he loved her, obliged to carry the knowledge of that fact along with her wherever she went; and, being courteous and sweet, and full of tenderness for others, Pandolfini knew that in that case she would have given him many a compassionate and gentle thought. But even of this he was robbed, for she did not know. The very possibility of a hearing, the suggestion, had never been his. Diana knew nothing of his heart, had never thought of him at all, would never think of him more. Could it be possible that any man had ever had such a wrong done him? To be buoyed up with hopes which were dashed by a refusal, ah, that might have been hard to bear! but how much harder to know that these hopes had never existed, that they were delusion and mistake and nothing more! There was a stifled rage and mortification in his misery, rage with himself for ever having believed it, mortification beyond words at the depth of vanity and folly in himself which was thus revealed to him. Poor Pandolfini! it had not been vanity: but this was how in his misery it appeared to him. Fool! to think that Diana, Diana! could waste any thought upon such as he!
This fancy drove him forth wildly from Mr. Hunstanton’s presence. He dared not speak, or make any answer, in case of betraying feelings which the good Hunstanton could not understand; and it was some time before he realised the real practical effect of his good Hunstanton’s proceedings. A vessel cannot be filled above its measure, and Pandolfini was too much overwhelmed with the absolute loss of Diana to take into his mind the fact that this loss involved something else equally appalling. He was not to have the gentil donna, the princess of his dreams; but that was not all. Something had been thrust into his arms instead. Something? What? He stood still in the middle of the street when the fact burst upon him, and gave a sudden wild cry of despair. It was not so wonderful there as it would be here that a man should cry aloud in the extremity of suffering. What was this that was thrust into his arms instead? When he stood there and fairly contemplated what had happened to him, any car of Juggernaut that had driven over him and crushed him into a shapeless mass upon the stones would have done Pandolfini a kindness—or so at least in his wretchedness he thought.
Mr. Hunstanton did not understand his visitor’s strange change of mood. To come in so eager, white with anxiety, breathless with excitement,—and then, when the good news was told him, to stand aghast for a moment, to walk away to the window, to make no reply. These were all the acts of a madman. Was his head turned?—was there a screw loose somewhere, as was the case so often with “these Italians”? Next time, no doubt, he would be laughing and crying with joy—always excitable, always in one extreme or another. Mr. Hunstanton forgot the peculiarity of his friend’s character, and classed him thus summarily with his race, by way of getting rid of a cold shiver of doubt, a momentary uncomfortableness on his own part, as to whether he had, as he had intended, carried out Pandolfini’s instructions to the letter, and acted for him according to his wishes. He quenched out this alarming thought by the reflection that a foreigner, and especially an Italian, acted exactly opposite to what an Englishman would do in the circumstances. He felt it so much, that was how it was. It overpowered him. These foreign fellows, even the best of them, let themselves go. They gave in to their feelings. They had not the self-control which is peculiar to the Briton, and did not even think self-control necessary. That was all about it. Pandolfini was so much overcome by his success and happiness that it took all power of speech from him. He was (no doubt) actually struck dumb from excess of feeling. By-and-by he would come back and throw himself on his friend’s neck, and thank him for his exertions. There could be no doubt that this was how it would be.
Yet, nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that there was a cold shiver, a cloud of doubt, an uncomfortable sense of uncertainty in Mr. Hunstanton’s mind. He did not feel at his ease, or happy. There was something in his friend’s look, in the blank misery of his eyes, that discomfited him. He sat in his study for an hour or two, very uneasy, listening to all the steps that went up the stairs. He even posted Gigi, his servant, at the door, to bring him news if Pandolfini should come back. And when there was nothing to be heard or seen of the truant, and the day began to decline, and the hour of the Ave Maria approached, which was the end of all things, the good man could dissemble his anxiety no longer. He went out stealthily (for it was time to dress for dinner) to look for his friend; and found him after a long walk very near his own house, standing by the parapet looking down into the Arno. The early moon had come out into the sky, while yet the glories of sunset were not over. Pandolfini was staring intently at the reflection of the moon in the water—he was entirely absorbed in it. When Hunstanton touched him on the shoulder, he woke slowly, as one in a dream.
“I say, Pandolfini, my good fellow, this won’t do, you know,” he cried. “I dare say you like to dream in this way. All fellows in love (I suppose) do; so they say, at least. But you must not give yourself up to that till you have seen them. You ought to go and see them. English ladies, you know, are not accustomed to that kind of courtship. I took upon myself to break the ice for you, and they took it very well, on the score, you know, that this was how things were done by your country folks, and that it was your modesty and so forth. But they expected you to go and follow it up; so did I. English ways are different. We don’t understand that sort of way of making love by proxy. To tell you the truth, I should not have let any one do it for me. But you must follow it up. You ought to have followed it up before now.”