“We are much obliged to you, but our own servant has looked after all that,” he said.
Paolo’s eyes flashed a little. The Englishman was rude; but in Paolo’s experience Englishmen were very often rude, and he was not surprised. Englishwomen, that was a different matter. He gave his shoulders a little shrug, and turned to Lydia once more.
“A servant—that is one thing,” he said, with a wave of his hand, “there are many, and the travellers many. One pays not too much attention to servants; but me, I think I can command——” Paolo said this with an ineffable look of modest importance; and he added in a lower tone: “To make it more easy for these ladies to go away—that is not what I should wish to do; but one must forget one’s self, and there may come another time—perhaps?”
“Yes,” said Lydia, smiling. She was so glad to come to an end of the tête-à-tête, which was becoming so embarrassing, that she smiled with double sweetness upon Paolo. “Indeed I shall have more to do with Leghorn than I ever supposed. Mr. Oliver—who is your friend——”
“My friend—of my heart,” said Paolo, laying his hand once more on his much-decorated bosom. He had dressed himself in all his finest chains and buttons, and a beautiful waistcoat, that Lydia might see him at his best.
“Ah!—he is my brother,” Lydia said. She had begun to shake off the jarred and painful feelings that had spoiled her morning’s work. Daylight and ordinary life, and a new excitement between her and that, began to restore the perspective; and as she made this announcement the first really wholesome natural sense of pleasure came over her. It was Lionel who was out of perspective now, too close to her, overshadowing heaven and earth. But the other event began to appear in its natural size and aspect. Paolo’s state of wonder was unfeigned. The Italian was quick enough to observe the undercurrents around him on ordinary occasions; but Lydia had made too great and immediate an impression upon him to leave his eyes free for anything else.
“Your brother!” he cried.
“Tell me how he arrived here, as you told me last night; but I did not know all the meaning of it then,” said Lydia. “Tell me again how he came, and carried his own box.”
She was more than half in earnest, wanting to hear about Harry, and yet it was half a pretence; she could not help but be conscious of the figure at her elbow stalking along in silent disgust, ready to abandon her for ever, and all the plans connected with her; ready to seize the little Italian by his coatcollar and whirl him away into the sea or air, yet jealous of losing a word of what was said. Lionel walked along the street like an embodied thunder-cloud, and they were already at the door of the Leone, which thank heaven, he thought, would at least put an end to this. It did not do so, however, for Lydia in her perversity insisted upon carrying Paolo with her to Lady Brotherton, interrupting him in the midst of the narrative she had asked for, but which in her gradually increasing excitement about her other companion she could not listen to. She broke into it just as Paolo, with the water in his eyes, was recounting how he had thrown himself on Harry’s bosom and sworn eternal friendship. “Siamo amici, I said to him,” said Paolo. “What is mine is thine. I will be your caution; I will respond for you; I will present you——” “Come upstairs, Mr. Paul,” said Lydia, restless, “Lady Brotherton will be glad to have you to help us.” He stopped short, thus interrupted in the midst of his narrative, and it hurt poor Paolo. But next moment he smiled with his usual sweet temper, and followed her. Lionel could not help feeling that in the same circumstances he could have almost killed her—which, indeed, was the state of his mind now. And then there followed such an afternoon of trouble and excitement as drove Lionel nearly out of his senses. Lady Brotherton had to be told the strange story, and then Sir John, who could not understand it at all; and afterwards, in the midst of all the preparations for the start, “all Leghorn,” the indignant young man said to himself, poured down upon them. All Leghorn meant Harry and his family, and Mr. Bonamy, who came one after another in different degrees of excitement. Rita arrived first with her two youngest children and their nurse, to show to her new sister-in-law, and to make amends for her previous want of graciousness. “I could not understand it—how could I understand it?” she said, and she was magnanimous enough to point out the resemblance of the bambino to his aunt. Then came Harry to say that he had made hasty preparations to go home with his sister, and would join them that evening at the steamboat. And finally the Vice-Consul’s exertions brought some sort of enlightenment to Sir John, whose first idea was that Mr. Bonamy’s son-in-law wanted to marry little Liddy, though he had already a wife of his own. All these perpetual visitors kept the party in a whirl of commotion, and Lionel, at last driven to the end of his patience, sallied forth and walked about till the moment of departure came, all but cursing Harry, and vowing to himself that he would take no further trouble, but let Lydia depart as she came. Why should he take any trouble? His mother would not like it. They (his parents) would wish him, if he married, to marry somebody with money, somebody with position, somebody—— Ah! Here he took himself by the shoulders, so to speak, and shook himself fiercely, and called himself, “you fool!” as if there was any question of marrying anybody! as if she would have him! Was she not pouring contempt upon him? putting even that little hop-o’-my thumb before him, preferring a little Italian beggar, hung all over with jewellery! These were poor Lionel’s reflections as he wandered about the streets. And that other fellow, the brother, if he was her brother, was going with them; would talk to her, who could doubt it, the whole time, and never give a man a chance——! Lionel would have liked, without much hyperbole, to smother them all, or pitch them into the sea.
At last the moment of departure came. Rita, with a flush of excitement about her, her cheeks hot, her eyes shining, and without a tear, came to the steamboat with her husband to see him away. He whispered again in her ear that he would not stay a moment longer than he could help; that he would count the days he was away from her; that she must not worry about him, must not feel lonely.