‘Miss Courtenay,’ he said, and waited till she looked up.
Something moved in Kate’s heart at the sound of his voice—some chord of early recollection—remembrances which seemed to her to stretch so far back—before the world began.
‘Well, Mr. Hardwick?’ she said, looking up with a smile. Why there should be something pathetic in that smile, and a little tightness across her eyelids, as if she could have cried, Kate could not have told, and neither can I.
‘Are you pleased to go home?—is it with your own will? or did your uncle’s coming distress you?’ he said, in a voice which was—yes, very kind, almost more than friendly; brotherly, Kate said to herself.
‘Yes; I have thought you looked a little troubled sometimes. I can’t help noticing. Don’t think me impertinent, but I can’t bear to see trouble in your face.’
Kate made no reply, but she looked up at him—looked him straight in the eyes. Once more she did not know why she did it, and she did not think of half the meanings which he saw written in her face. He faltered; he turned away; he grew red and grew pale; and then came back to her with an answering look which did not falter; but for the re-entrance of the others he must have said something. But they came back, and he did not speak. If he had spoken, what would he have said?
This gave a new direction to Kate’s thoughts, but still it was with a heavy heart that she entered Lady Caryisfort’s drawing-room, not more than a week after that evening when Antonio had asked for the violets, and she had hesitated whether she would give them. She had hesitated! It was this thought which made her so much ashamed. She had been lonely, and she had been willing to accept his heart as a plaything; and how could she say to him now, ‘I am no longer lonely. I am going home; and I could not take you, a stranger, back, to be master of Langton?’ She could not say this, and what was she to say? Antonio Buoncompagni was not much more comfortable; he had been thoroughly schooled, and he had begun to accept his part. He even saw, and that clearly, that a pretty, independent bird in the hand, able to pipe as he wished, was better than a fluttering, uncertain fledgling in the bush; but he had a lively sense of honour, and he had committed himself. The young lady, he thought, ought at least to have the privilege of refusing him. ‘Go, then, and be refused—pazzo!’ said his aunt. ‘Most people avoid a refusal, but thou wishest it. It is a pity that thou shouldst not be satisfied.’ But, having obtained this permission, the young Count was not, perhaps, so ready to avail himself of it. He did not care to be rejected any more than other men, but he was anxious to reconcile his conscience to his desertion; and he had a tender sense that he himself—Antonio—was not one to be easily forgotten. He watched Kate from the moment of her entry, and persuaded himself that she was pale. ‘Poverina!’ he said, beneath his moustache. Alas! the sacrifice must be made; but then it might be done in a gentle way.
The evening, however, was half over before he had found his way to her side—a circumstance which filled Kate with wonder, and kept her in a curious suspense; for she could not talk freely to anyone else while he was within sight, to whom she had so much (she thought) to say. He came, and Kate was confused and troubled. Somehow she felt he was changed. Was he less handsome, less tall, less graceful? What had happened to him? Surely there was something. He was no longer the young hero who had dropped on his knee, and kissed her hand for Italy. She was confused, and could not tell how it was.
‘You are going to leave Florence?’ he said. ‘It is sudden—it is too sad to think of. Miss Courtenay, I hope it is not you who wish to leave our beautiful Italy—you, who have understood her so well?’