“You think so,” he said, gently shaking his head. “Generosissima! You show me the wound to heal mine. But it will not be so with me. I wish no healing: yet I will do—my duty,” he added, in a low and broken voice.
“God bless you, Mr. Pandolfini!” she said, holding out her hand.
This overcame him altogether. He fell upon his knees and kissed it, as men of his faith kiss the holy mysteries, and then looked at her with trembling lips and dim eyes, as we look at those we are never to see more, and stumbling to his feet, turned and hurried from the room. The tears were falling frankly and without concealment from Diana’s eyes. She was touched to the heart. Oh that such things should be! that the best of life should thus be thrown away like a flower on somebody’s path to whom it was nothing. She had forgotten Sophy altogether in the anguish of sympathy and fellow-feeling. That complication, adding as it did so much misery and difficulty, seemed to fade altogether in presence of the pang which she herself understood so thoroughly, and seemed to feel again.
She had barely time to dry her eyes when she heard some one coming, and turned her back to the light to avoid a too curious gaze. It was Sophy who came in, complaining. “O Diana!” she cried, with a little start, “you are here! that was why he went away. It is very hard to see so little of him, and when he does come to be out and have him sent away.”
“Oh, Sophy, my pet, don’t be unjust,” said Mrs. Norton; “how should Diana send him away? Of course he must have felt it hard that you should be out when he snatched a moment from his business. Was he very much disappointed, Diana? I am sure you would say everything that was kind.”
“Yes: he was surprised to find me here waiting for you—as I was surprised to see him,” said Diana, with an unconscious sense of apology. “He did not—stay—I came to ask you to look at—some patterns,” her voice failed her. She could not add the trivial message which in reality, with that indulgence which Mrs. Hunstanton never could understand, was the reason of her visit: for Sophy’s trousseau, which was causing her so much delightful occupation, was for the most part Diana’s gift.
“Patterns!” they both said in a breath, in tones of interest which drove away all recollection of Mr. Pandolfini’s visit which they had lost.
“You shall see them, if you will come to me downstairs,” said Diana, glad of this easy means of getting away.
And they spent an hour or two delighted and yet anxious in the perplexities of choice, and never noticed either of them any traces of tears that might be lingering about Diana’s eyes.