“Harry,” said Rita, leaning across the table, “what is Miss Joscelyn saying to you? You have forgotten your favourite dish, which was made expressly for you. Look, there is Antonio waiting, and cannot make you understand.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Harry, with a hurried glance round him; and then Antonio, though he did not know a word of English, understood like a true Italian that he was wanted to relieve an embarrassment, and gallantly stepped into the breach with his dish. Lydia, arrested in the midst of her assault, felt herself driven back upon herself, and confused as if she had received a soft, unexpected blow.
“Harry,” she said, in a low tone, “Harry—I thought your name was Isaac Oliver. I beg your pardon, I fear I have been making a mistake.”
The talk had recommenced again; nobody was paying any attention, and Harry’s head was bent over his plate; but suddenly he raised it for a single instant, and gave her a look. What did that look mean? Lydia was stunned by it as by a sudden electric shock. She had been confused before, but not half so confused as now. The look was tender, affectionate even, half-appealing, as if, she thought, there was some secret understanding between them—something which they knew, and which nobody else knew. She stared at him in return, arrested in all the movements of her own mind, her lips dropping apart in her wonder, her eyes opening wide. He was not angry nor surprised at her boldness, nor at her attempt to force upon him an undesirable relation, but looked at her with an almost affectionateness, an understanding which she could not understand. Lydia was altogether confused; she did not say another word. Sitting by this stranger’s side, she relapsed into silence like his own. Who was he? What did he mean? How had he got the command of her? She was giddy with the confusion in her mind, and what it all meant she could not tell.
CHAPTER X.
AFTER DINNER.
BUT Lydia was far, very far from being out of the embarrassment which she had brought upon herself. When the ladies went back to the drawing-room, which they did after the English fashion, Rita took no more notice of her than civility required, though she could not help owning to herself that there could be no reason for displeasure with her husband, or the least sense of jealousy on Lydia’s account; Rita however could not help showing her adoption of Harry’s quarrel by the chilliest civility to the girl against whom he had bidden her to be on her guard. She would not, as some suspicious women might have done, seize the opportunity to find out something concerning that part of his life which was unknown to her. She was too proudly honourable to do this; and she could not help feeling a certain enmity towards the girl who might betray him, even to herself. No, she would not hear a word Miss Joscelyn might have to say. She lingered by her a moment coldly, and asked if she would like to look at some books of engravings (it was before the time of photographs), placing them before her on a little table; and then she sat down on a sofa in a distant corner of the room with Lady Brotherton, and talked and talked. When the gentlemen came in, Lydia was visible in her white dress, all lighted up by the condensed light under the shade of a large lamp, sitting quite alone, while the voices of the two others seemed to bring her solitude into more full relief. Quite alone—nobody taking any notice. There was room round her for all the party, and it would have been natural that they should have collected about her, the only girl among them, so pretty as she was, and neglected by the other women. But the younger men were balked by the Vice-Consul, who stepped forward briskly, and at once put himself into a chair beside her. He talked to her, as he had a gift of talking, with delightful sympathy and kindness. He asked her about her travels, how far she had gone, and entered into all the little adventures of which she told him, telling her stories of the days when he too had travelled, and giving her all manner of anecdotes. The Vice-Consul was still a handsome man, as majestic and gracious as ever; and he had a way, as everybody acknowledged, of talking to young people. He charmed Lydia altogether. She thought she had never met with anyone so delightful; and then he led the conversation quite imperceptibly to England, and her part of the country, and her family and herself.
“England is a closed country to me,” he said. “To be sure I might go now that my daughter is married, and I am no longer indispensable to her. But I forget that. When Rita was younger, before she married, I was all she had, as she is still all I have in the world. I hope your parents are both living, Miss Joscelyn, and happy in their child? Ah, that is well. Rita has never been in England, and must never be.”
“Must never be?” Lydia looked across the room to the sofa on which Mrs. Oliver was still sitting, with mingled wonder and pity. And yet, she reflected, she herself was not so very glad to get back to England. That was a fate which, under certain circumstances, might be bearable enough.
“No; I dare not risk her among the fogs and damps. She is—well, perhaps, I ought not to say she is delicate, not now: but she was so during all her earlier life. You see, I forget that she is not still my little girl, but has now little girls of her own. That makes a difference. No, she was never to go to England, that I vowed almost as soon as she was born. The cold and the damp were fatal to her mother, and Rita is so like her; I dare not risk my daughter there.”
“But,” said Lydia, “it is not always cold and damp. It is very lovely here, but people are prejudiced, and talk nonsense about England. If it is so long since you were there, you have, perhaps, forgotten. We have something else besides rain and fog.”