Paolo smiled a benevolent but somewhat tremulous smile.
“The young lady is very beautiful—that goes without saying,” he said. “I had thought you would have taken your freedom a little longer, and you wish to marry and range yourself. Bene! it will be what you call all oop with me,” said Paolo, with a slight quiver; “a wife—that goes not along with a friend—not a friend of the heart like me. It makes a beginning to many things, but also to some an end.”
“Good gracious!” cried Harry, “do you mean to say you don’t understand me? Am I in a condition to marry? I have not a penny. I have my little salary, and that is all. If I could jump up and ask her to marry me, above-board in our English way, do you think I’d ask any advice about it? I don’t want you to tell me she’s nice, I know that myself a great deal better than you could tell me. It is just because I can’t marry, and ought to hold my tongue and never say a a word about it—and yet can’t help seeing her continually, that I don’t know what to do.”
Paolo looked at him with a still more wistful, anxious face. He was terribly perplexed. There was an alternative which was not at all impossible to his imagination; but having on many occasions already come in contact forcibly with the English mind, as represented in Harry, he was afraid to state or refer to the other side of the question, which nevertheless was not at all terrible to himself. He looked very wistfully and earnestly in his friend’s face, trying hard to read and make out what was in it. What was in it? Did he mean——? Paolo could not tell whether he might venture to say what he would have said easily enough to many of his other friends.
“You would then—that understands itself; but to put it into words, above all with an English what you call Puritano—like you; you would then—make a little arrangement—you would then propose—without going to church.”
“Eh?” said Harry. He turned round upon his friend with blazing eyes. “Eh?” The monosyllable was more terrible than a whole chapter of invectives. Astonishment, non-comprehension, yet at the same time alarmed and furious understanding were in it. Paolo, who was a miracle of quick intelligence, saw all that was in Harry’s look almost before he himself was conscious of it, and he mended his indiscretion with the rapidity of lightning.
“I have make a mistake,” he said. “I have not understood. It is so sudden, I had no preparation. If you will perhaps tell me again?”
Harry stared with wide open eyes like a bull, not quite knowing whether to charge an adversary, or to turn away from an insignificant intruder. The more peaceable impulse prevailed. He had stood still gazing at Paolo, who, mentally trembling, though he put the best face he could outwardly upon the matter, met his friend’s gaze with a deprecating smile. After a minute he resumed his pacing about the floor.
“I see you don’t understand,” he said, with something between a groan and a sigh. “Well then, I’ll try again. Here are the circumstances. I am admitted to the house, a very nice house, in which I am very happy. The father puts faith in me; he trusts me like a friend; the young lady is—everything that is nice. Well! don’t you see? like a fool, instead of keeping quiet and enjoying all this, like a fool I have gone and fallen in love with her. And last night I was as near betraying myself—— Now if I go on I’ll be more and more tempted to betray myself. I can’t keep away from the house—it is not possible. I can’t offer to the young lady because I am not good enough for her, and I have no money. Now what am I to do?”
“You were at the house of the Signor Vice-Consul last night?”