"What? I am to take care not to spoil you?" the old Countess said, with a laugh. "I'll answer for that. If flattered vanity could spoil, you would be quite ruined by this time. Good heavens! I would rather you were a little spoiled,--just a little,--and happy, instead of being as you are, an angel,--sometimes an insufferable one, but still an angel,--with no sunshine in your heart." She looked askance, almost timidly, at the young girl, as if to see if she were not a little merrier to-day than usual. No, Erika did not look merry: she looked touched, but not merry.
"If I only knew what you want!" the grandmother sighed, half aloud.
Erika moved closer to her side. "I want nothing. I have too much," she whispered. "You spoil me."
"How can I help it? I am seventy-two years old: how much time is left me to delight in you? It may be all over for me to-day or to-morrow, and then----" But when she looked again at Erika the tears were rolling down the girl's cheeks. "Foolish child!" exclaimed the grandmother. "In all probability I shall not die so very soon: you need not spoil your fine eyes with crying, beforehand; but one ought to be prepared for everything, and of course I should like to see you married to a good husband."
She had rested her hand on Erika's arm, and hitherto the young girl in a child-like caressing way had pressed it close to her side, but now she extricated herself from the old lady's clasp; her lips quivered. "Whom shall I marry?" she exclaimed, with bitter emphasis.
Then both were silent. The grandmother was conscious of the blunder she had committed, and was furious with herself; which nevertheless would not in the least prevent her from making another of the same kind whenever an opportunity offered.
Erika walked stiff and haughty beside her without looking at her again.
When they reached the Circolo, after a long walk, they wandered through the splendid, spacious rooms for some time without discovering the object of their expedition. The spring exhibition at the Circolo was sparsely attended: strangers had no time for modern art in Venice, and the natives preferred a walk in such fine weather. Consequently the pictures signed by famous modern names hung for the most part upon the walls merely for the satisfaction of their originators. Bezzy's landscapes the old Countess pronounced to be masterpieces, and she became so absorbed in a sirocco by that artist that she quite forgot the purpose for which she had come hither.
It looked almost as if Erika took more interest than her grandmother in Lozoncyi's picture. She looked about her in search of it. From the next room came the sound of voices, now suppressed, then loud in talk. Her heart began to beat fast, and she directed her steps thither.
A group of six or seven men were standing in front of a large picture which hung alone on one side of the room, probably because no other artist had ventured to provoke comparison with it. The men standing before it--Erika suspected, from their remarks, that they were all artists by profession--spoke of it in low tones, as of something sacred, which the picture was not,--far from it; but it was a magnificent revelation of genius, and as such was something divine.