“Then do you think, papa,” said Rita, still magisterial, “that it is right to postpone a matter which concerns other people’s comfort to another time?”
“Don’t worry me to death,” said Mr. Bonamy, stretching out his hands with a half-despairing appeal. “I never thought I was going to be led into such a discussion—don’t worry me to death!”
But she showed no signs of mercy, and there is no telling what might have happened to Her Majesty’s humble representative had he not been called away at this moment to receive a messenger with despatches from the Consulate-General and important instructions. Mr. Bonamy hurried away with a sigh of thankfulness; never was culprit suddenly delivered from the bar more glad of his escape. He knew, indeed, that it was only for a time: but yet even for a time it was well to get out of her hands. At least he could collect materials for his defence.
Rita, for her part, after sitting for some time waiting for her father’s return, and sharpening up various arguments for his complete discomfiture, got tired, and made up her mind to take his advice and go to bed. But she had a great deal too much to think about to have any desire to go to sleep. When she had sent Benedetta away she sat by her window in her white dressing-gown, with her hair about her shoulders, a romantic little figure, and felt a little like Juliet. She had never felt like Juliet before. She had, even with the flippancy of her age, been disposed to think of Juliet as of a very forward and bold young woman. People who have been accustomed to hear of marriage as a matter of convenience, so much dot, so many advantages, and who have even been negotiated for in this way, are apt to think but poorly of that ideal impersonation of youthful passion. But now that Romeo had appeared on the scene, Rita, at the window, thought upon Juliet with a little secret wonder, and awe, and pleasure. Romeo—well, there is no evidence that Romeo was clever. He was only one of the gallants of the period, one of the swash-bucklers who sometimes talk just as badly as their kind, though often they forget themselves and talk Shakespeare. There was nothing extraordinary about him till love and the poet got hold of him, and put divine words into his mouth. Very likely that gay Mercutio was the cleverest of the two. Sitting thus at her window, Rita all at once was sensible of a figure on the pavement looking up at the house from the opposite side of the street. There was nothing but a little night-light burning on a table in the corner, nothing to betray her figure where she sat. And nothing could be more common-place and absurd than that Harry should come there and stare at the windows. He was not by any means in the habit of doing so; but yet when he was out, taking his forlorn walk, he would allow himself to take that turn through the street in which the Consulate was, and fix a wistful eye upon it for a moment. When Rita saw him she darted back with a movement of fright and wonder, and mirth and shyness, all in one; and sat out of sight for a few moments, panting, blushing, with the same overwhelming flush of sudden warmth which had come over her for the first time when her father spoke to her. Then, in the dark and the silence, she gave vent to a little low laugh, at which she was frightened when she heard it, and became suddenly as solemn and serious as an old picture. Then she returned shyly to the corner of the window, peeping, though she ought to have known that it was impossible he could see her. The figure opposite was in the act of passing on; it gave a long look back as it went slowly away, lingering as if reluctant to be out of her neighbourhood. Rita drew back this time with a kind of awe. She knew he would have thought no more of climbing the garden wall, however high it had been—if there had been a garden wall and a balcony, and she out upon it discoursing to the moon—than Romeo did. “But there is the difference,” Rita said to herself; “he may be in love with me, but I am not in love with him. I would never stand out there and sigh Romeo, Romeo. No,” she went on, with a little shriek of a laugh, “not Romeo. Oh, Isaac, Isaac, wherefore art thou Isaac? That is too ridiculous; it is all too ridiculous. I don’t wonder at what Benedetta says, that the English are half-mad.”
And then she sat a long time in the dark, and thought, and thought. It was all very new and very strange. It roused her lively faculties with the pleasure of a novel sensation. She had taken her proposals of marriage with sedate contempt, and announced authoritatively to her father on each occasion that she had no intention of ever marrying, and that she liked him much better than any other man in the world, an assurance which the poor Vice-Consul took great comfort in, though it was not possible that any man in his senses could accept it as a matter of serious faith. But now Rita could not deny to herself that this strange new bewildering sensation was a pleasant one. Her former suitors would no doubt have gladly adopted it had it been thought that such an easy mode of love-making would have been permitted; but in their cases it would not have moved the foolish girl. To see somebody standing silent on the other side of the street, doing nothing to call her attention, not wishing to be noticed, doing it only for a little comfort to himself, was entirely different. That was the English way, she thought with awe. To be able to give love up for the sake of honour, and yet to have it so much at heart as to be driven to come and look at the house in which the beloved object lived, standing about alone in a cold night—Rita’s whole heart was penetrated by the sincerity, the modesty, the self-restraint, yet self-abandonment, which were English, only English, nothing else. It was not in the least a cold night: Harry outside felt it to be warm and genial: but there was a cool little night-breeze lifting the curtains, and she strove to call it cold to heighten the effect. This was how the Vice-Consul had mismanaged matters. He was not a happy man as he read his despatches; but he had no idea of the mischief which was going on under cover of the night.
CHAPTER XIII.
A LOVER’S ORDEAL.
RITA said nothing more to her father on this subject for a day or two, and the poor man, deceived once more, began to believe that it had made little impression upon her, and was to be allowed to pass as of no particular importance. He had even begun to congratulate himself on the beneficial effects of his system of training, and the knowledge of the world which her early initiation into life had given her. “Had I brought Rita up as most girls are brought up,” he said to himself; “had she been fresh from a convent, for instance, like some of her friends, or shut up indoors as Italian girls are, her head would have been turned by the first mention of a lover. But she has seen a great deal, though she is so young. In our position she could not help seeing a great deal. She knows how to discriminate, and can judge what is what. What a good thing that I did not follow the advice of all these ladies, but was bold enough to trust to my girl’s innocence and bring her up my own way!” Thus artlessly did the Vice-Consul console himself. And his mind was a great deal easier; for before he was always nervous lest she should question him about Harry, and afraid of betraying himself, even afraid of letting Rita perceive that there was something to betray. Now that he had made a clean breast and got it over, his mind was relieved, and he felt that he could carry his head as high as usual, and need not be afraid to look any girl in the face. For the first day he rejoiced with trembling, but after that had passed began to feel that he had really secured his footing, and might take comfort that the danger was over. Poor Vice-Consul! He had but just allowed this sensation of pleasure to enter his mind when Rita, looking up at him suddenly from a book in which she had all the air of being completely absorbed, addressed him suddenly as follows—
“Papa! I have been thinking over what you told me the other day—What is the matter?” she added, interrupting herself.
“Nothing, nothing,” said poor Mr. Bonamy, faintly. He had been lying back in a very comfortable chair, whiffing gently at intervals a mild cigarette, and giving himself up to the comfort, the ease of being done with a subject in which he had foreseen trouble. When his daughter began to speak, a presentiment of danger awoke in him, and he started up in his chair when she had said these words. “Nothing, nothing,” he repeated, letting himself drop again, but alas, with what different feelings; with the languor of a conflict foreseen, in which he knew he should be worsted. “What have you been thinking about, Rita?”
“About what you told me the other day. Of course it was not just an ordinary thing that one could think nothing more about. Poor Mr. Oliver! I think he has been badly treated. I want you to tell him just to come as usual. He must be on his guard, you know; but in any case he would be on his guard after speaking to you. He must not suppose that I know anything about it.”