But now in the breath of the evening breeze, setting inland from the Atlantic, Lorraine was roving for the last time in the grounds of Monte Argento. At three in the morning he must set forth, with horses provided by his host, on his journey to head-quarters. The Count was known as a patriotic, wise, and wealthy noble, both of whose sons were fighting bravely in the Spanish army; and through his influence Lorraine had been left to hospitality instead of hospitals, which in truth had long been overworked. But Major Clumps had returned to his duty long ago, with a very sore heart, when he found from the Donna Camilla that “she liked him very much indeed, but could never induce herself to love him.” With the sharp eye of jealousy, that brave Major spied in Hilary the cause of this, and could not be brought to set down his name any more in his letters homeward; or at any rate, not for a very long time.
Lorraine, in the calm of this summer evening, with the heat-clouds moving eastward, and the ripple of refreshment softly wooing the burdened air, came to a little bower, or rather a natural cove of rock and leaf, wherein (as he knew) the two fair sisters loved to watch the eventide weaving hill and glen with shadow, before the rapid twilight waned. There was something here that often brought his native Southdowns to his mind, though the foliage was so different. Instead of the rich deep gloss of the beech, the silvery stir of the aspen-tree, and the feathery droop of the graceful birch, here was the round monotony of the olive and the lemon-tree, the sombre depth of the ilex, and the rugged lines of the cork-tree, relieved, it is true, just here and there by the symmetry of the silver fir, and the elegant fan of the palm. But what struck Lorraine, and always irked him under these southern trees and skies, was the way in which the foliage cut its outline over sharply; there was none of that hovering softness, and sweetly fluctuating margin, by which a tree inspires affection as well as admiration.
Unluckily now Lorraine had neither affection nor admiration left for the innocent beauty of nature’s works. His passion for Claudia was become an overwhelming and noxious power—a power that crushed for the time and scattered all his better elements. He had ceased to be light-hearted, and to make the best of everything, to love the smiles of children, and to catch a little joke and return it. He had even ceased to talk to himself, as if his conscience had let him know that he was not fit to be talked to. All the waking hours he passed, in the absence of his charmer, were devoted to the study of Spanish; and he began to despise his own English tongue. “There is no melody in it, no rhythm, no grand sonorous majesty,” he used to complain; “it is like its owners, harsh, uncouth, and countrified.” After this, what can any one do but pity him for his state of mind?
Whether Claudia returned his passion—for such it was rather than true affection—was still a very doubtful point, though the most important in all the world. Generally she seemed to treat him with a pleased contempt, as if he were a pleasant boy, though several years older than herself. Her clear dark eyes were of such a depth that, though she was by no means chary of their precious glances, he had never been able to reach that inmost light which comes from the very heart. How different from somebody’s—of whom he now thought less and less, and vainly strove to think no more, because of the shame that pierced him! But if this Spanish maiden really did not care about him, why did she try, as she clearly did, to conquer and subdue him? Why did she shoot such glances at him as Spanish eyes alone can shoot; why bend her graceful neck so sweetly, slope her delicate head so gently, showing the ripe firm curve of cheek, and with careless dancings let her raven hair fall into his? Hilary could not imagine why; but poor Camilla knew too well. If ever Camilla felt for a moment the desirability of any one, Claudia (with her bolder manners, and more suddenly striking beauty, and less dignified love of conquest) might be relied upon to rush in and attract the whole attention.
Hilary found these lovely sisters in their little cove of rock, where the hot wind seldom entered through the fringe of hanging frond. They had a clever device of their own for welcoming the Atlantic breeze, by means of a silken rope which lifted all the screen of fern, and creeper, and of grey rock-ivy.
Now the screen was up, and the breeze flowed in, meeting a bright rill bubbling out (whose fountain was in the living rock), and the clear obscurity was lit with forms as bright as poetry. Camilla’s comely head had been laid on the bosom of her sister, as if she had made some soft appeal for mercy or indulgence there. And Claudia had been moved a little, as the glistening of her eyelids showed, and a tender gleam in her expression—the one and the only thing required to enrich her brilliant beauty. And thus, without stopping to think, she came up to Hilary, with a long kind glance, and gave a little sigh, worth more than even that sweet glance to him.
“Alas! dear Captain,” she said in Spanish, which Hilary was quite pat with now; “we have been lamenting your brief departure. How shall we live when you are lost?”
“What cruelty of yourselves to think! The matter of your inquiry should be the chance of my survival.”
“Well said!” she exclaimed. “You English are not so very stupid after all. Why do you not clap your hands, Camilla?”
Camilla, being commanded thus, made a weak attempt with her little palms; but her heart was down too low for any brisk concussion of flesh or air.