She would have been astonished had she heard the conversation of the two gentlemen as they wound gently downwards through the trees.
‘As far as I am concerned,’ Captain De Stancy’s companion was saying, ‘nothing would give me more unfeigned delight than that you should persevere and win her. But you must understand that I have no authority over her—nothing more than the natural influence that arises from my being her father’s brother.’
‘And for exercising that much, whatever it may be, in my favour I thank you heartily,’ said De Stancy. ‘But I am coming to the conclusion that it is useless to press her further. She is right! I am not the man for her. I am too old, and too poor; and I must put up as well as I can with her loss—drown her image in old Falernian till I embark in Charon’s boat for good!—Really, if I had the industry I could write some good Horatian verses on my inauspicious situation!... Ah, well;—in this way I affect levity over my troubles; but in plain truth my life will not be the brightest without her.’
‘Don’t be down-hearted! you are too—too gentlemanly, De Stancy, in this matter—you are too soon put off—you should have a touch of the canvasser about you in approaching her; and not stick at things. You have my hearty invitation to travel with us all the way till we cross to England, and there will be heaps of opportunities as we wander on. I’ll keep a slow pace to give you time.’
‘You are very good, my friend! Well, I will try again. I am full of doubt and indecision, mind, but at present I feel that I will try again. There is, I suppose, a slight possibility of something or other turning up in my favour, if it is true that the unexpected always happens—for I foresee no chance whatever.... Which way do we go when we leave here to-morrow?’
‘To Carlsruhe, she says, if the rest of us have no objection.’
‘Carlsruhe, then, let it be, with all my heart; or anywhere.’
To Carlsruhe they went next day, after a night of soft rain which brought up a warm steam from the Schwarzwald valleys, and caused the young tufts and grasses to swell visibly in a few hours. After the Baden slopes the flat thoroughfares of ‘Charles’s Rest’ seemed somewhat uninteresting, though a busy fair which was proceeding in the streets created a quaint and unexpected liveliness. On reaching the old-fashioned inn in the Lange-Strasse that they had fixed on, the women of the party betook themselves to their rooms and showed little inclination to see more of the world that day than could be gleaned from the hotel windows.
III.
While the malignant tongues had been playing havoc with Somerset’s fame in the ears of Paula and her companion, the young man himself was proceeding partly by rail, partly on foot, below and amid the olive-clad hills, vineyards, carob groves, and lemon gardens of the Mediterranean shores. Arrived at San Remo he wrote to Nice to inquire for letters, and such as had come were duly forwarded; but not one of them was from Paula. This broke down his resolution to hold off, and he hastened directly to Genoa, regretting that he had not taken this step when he first heard that she was there.