Would it not be charming to sit opposite to her thus daily at his own table,--to lavish care and tenderness upon the poor child who had been so neglected and thrust out into the world,--to spoil and pet her to his heart's content? "Grasp your chance,--grasp it!" the heart in his bosom cries out: "her lot is hard, she is grateful for a little sympathy, will she not smile on you in spite of your gray hair?" But reason admonishes: "Forbear! she is only a child. To be sure, if, as she has avowed, her heart be really untouched, why then----"
Whilst he, absorbed in such careful musings, grows more and more taciturn, she chatters away gaily upon every conceivable topic, devouring with an appetite to be envied the frugal refection he has provided.
"It is delightful, our improvised supper," she declares, "almost as charming as the little suppers at the Britannia which papa used to have ready for me when I came home from parties in Venice, as terribly hungry as one always is on returning from a Venetian soirée, where one is delightfully entertained but gets nothing to eat."
"It seems, then, that the Giovanelli ball was not your only glimpse of Venetian society?" Rohritz remarks, with a glance that is well-nigh indiscreetly searching.
"Before papa grew so much worse I very often went out: papa insisted upon it. The Countess L---- chaperoned me. And at Lady Stair's evenings in especial I enjoyed myself almost as much as I was bored at the Giovanelli ball. I cannot, 'tis true, dance; but talk,"--she laughs somewhat shyly, as if in ridicule of her talkativeness,--"I can talk."
"That there is nothing to eat at a Venetian soirée I know from experience," Rohritz says, rather ill-humouredly, "but how one can find any enjoyment there I am absolutely unable to understand. Venetian society is terrible: the men especially are intolerable."
"I did not find it so," Stella declares, shaking her head with her usual grave simplicity in asserting her opinion; "not at all."
"But you must confess that Italians are usually low-toned; that----"
"But I did not meet Italians exclusively; I met Austrians, English, Russians; although in fact"--she pauses reflectively, then says, with conviction--"the nicest of all, my very particular friend, was an Italian, Prince Zino Capito."
"He calls himself an Austrian," Rohritz interposes.