“I wouldn’t stand having that little brat of a child set up as the heir under my very nose; and, by Jove, Austin, I’d settle that old curmudgeon Farrel’s hopes fast enough, if I were in your place,” said his advisers.
Herbert was not displeased with the notion. He played with it, with a certain enjoyment. He felt that he was a prize worth anybody’s pursuit, and liked to hear that such and such ladies were “after him.” The Duke of Ptarmigan had a daughter or two, and Sir Billy Trotter’s sister might do worse, her friends thought. Herbert smoothed an incipient moustache, late in growing, and consequently very precious, and felt a delightful complaisance steal over him. And he knew that Sophy, his cousin, did not despise him; I am not sure even that the young coxcomb was not aware that he might have the pick of either of the girls, if he chose; which also, though Kate had never thought on the subject, was true enough. She had faithfully given him over to her younger sister, and never interfered; but if Herbert had thrown his handkerchief to her, she would have thought it sinful to refuse. When he thought on the subject, which was often enough, he had a kind of lazy sense that this was what would befall him at last. He would throw his handkerchief some time when he was at the Hatch, and wheresoever the chance wind might flutter it, there would be his fate. He did not really care much whether it might happen to be Sophy or Kate.
When he came home, however, these thoughts would float away out of his mind. He did not think of marrying, though Miss Augustine spoke to him on the subject every day. He thought of something else, which yet was not so far different; he thought that nowhere, in society or out of it, had he seen any one like Giovanna.
“Did you ever see such a picture?” he would say to Reine. “Look at her! Now she’s sculpture, with that child on her shoulder. If the boy was only like herself, what a group they’d make! I’d like to have Marochetti, or some of those swells, down, to make them in marble. And she’d paint just as well. By Jove, she’s all the arts put together. How she does sing! Patti and the rest are nothing to her. But I don’t understand how she could be the mother of that boy.”
Giovanna came back across the lawn, having swung the child from her shoulder on to the fragrant grass, in time to hear this, and smiled and said, “He does not resemble me, does he? Madame Suzanne, M. Herbert remarks that the boy is not dark as me. He is another type—yes, another type, n’est ce pas!”
“Not a bit like you,” said Herbert. “I don’t say anything against Jean, who is a dear little fellow; but he is not like you.”
“Ah! but he is the heir of M. Herbert, which is better,” cried Giovanna, with a laugh, “until M. Herbert will marry. Why will not you marry and range yourself? Then the little Jean and the great Giovanna will melt away like the fogs. Ah, marry, M. Herbert! it is what you ought to do.”
“Are you so anxious, then, to melt away like the fog?—like the sunshine, you mean,” said the young man in a low voice. They were all in the porch, but he had gone out to meet her, on pretence of playing with little Jean.
“But no,” said Giovanna, smiling, “not at all. I am very well here; but when M. Herbert will marry, then I must go away. Little Jean will be no more the heir.”
“Then I shall never marry,” said the young man, though still in tones so low as not to reach the ears of the others. Giovanna turned her face toward him with a mocking laugh.