When passing the morning in the society of Mildred, not a single fragment of a thought fell to the share of Louisa. But when, having left her, he proceeded to his hotel with a heavy and perplexed heart, and asked himself where all this was tending—when he afterwards found himself seated by the side of two persons, somewhat silly and ridiculous it is true, but kind-hearted and most amiably disposed, able and anxious to offer him that only safe harbour of life which property builds up for us—a harbour, too, which would secure him from that wild tempest so evidently preparing for him—it seemed that a very little more would turn the balance in favour of Louisa.
That very little more, an incident which we have to record, supplied.
Whilst walking and sitting with Mildred in the Villa Reale, he had noticed that a tall, military-looking gentleman had appeared singularly struck with the beauty Of his fair companion. In this there was nothing unusual. Few people passed her without paying a certain silent homage to those blue eyes and their singular sweetness of expression. Even the common people, even the beggars, when they had received their alms and stayed no longer to beg, would still stay, lingering about, to catch another look at that face, when it should be turned towards them. But in the stranger's manner there was something more than admiration expressed; and, what was more remarkable and more alarming to the feelings of Winston, Mildred herself manifested towards this stranger—if he were a stranger—an almost equal degree of interest. On the last occasion, when they encountered him, this gentleman was observed to turn and follow them, and watch them to the door of Mr. Bloomfield's residence. Winston, after parting with his companion, re-entered the gardens opposite, and from this position he saw the same stranger return to Mr. Bloomfield's door, ring at the bell, ask, as it seemed, several questions of the porter, and then—enter the house!
As he stood staring at this inexplicable vision, he was accosted by a young Englishman, with whom he had some slight travelling acquaintance; and, by a singular coincidence, the very first question his companion put, was—whether he knew that gentleman who had just entered the house opposite?
"No! do you?" was the prompt reply of Winston.
"I do not," said the other; "but I confess I am rather curious to learn. He must be somebody—travels in grand style—has taken the best rooms in the Victoria. I took him for a Russian prince, but he speaks English like a native."
"The Russians are said to be such good linguists, this may be no criterion," said Winston, hiding, as best he could, under the commonplace remark, the agitation that he felt. He very soon made some excuse to escape from his companion, and returned to his hotel. That day he was at dinner more absent than usual; yet there was something in his manner which Louisa liked, which gave her more hope than she had lately entertained.
The next morning Winston called as usual at the Bloomfields. They had ridden out; and he learned, on inquiry, that his seat in the carriage had been occupied by this mysterious stranger. Where should he go? what should he do? He now felt how complete a slave he had become—how utterly dependent for all his happiness upon another. His happiness! what but misery could he reap from this passion? And now to love was to be added all the pangs of jealousy.
He entered the gardens opposite the Villa Reale. That "prince of promenades," as some one has called it, extending as it does along a quay unparalleled for the beauty of its position, with its thick dark shelter of olives on the one side of you, and its light and graceful avenue of acacias on the other, with its statues surrounded each by its parterre of flowers or niched in its green recess, with the fountain bubbling from the ground at its feet—all had ceased to please. At one part the promenade projects into a small semicircle, fitted up with marble seats, which commands an uninterrupted view of the bay and of Vesuvius. It is difficult to recognise our old boisterous friend, the sea, such as we know him in our northern latitudes, in the dancing blue waters which, stirred by the lightest breeze, are here flinging the whitest foam over the polished black rocks or stones that line these coasts, and still more, in the glassy azure which extends, like a lake, in the distance: it is a scene to induce the most perfect repose. But Winston found no repose in it, and its beauty awoke not a single emotion of enthusiasm. He turned towards Vesuvius. Its column of smoke, rising always there, neither subsiding nor increasing, now irritated him by its sameness and its constancy. "Always thus!" he mentally exclaimed. "Why does it not explode at once? Why not at once give out all its rage?"
He passed through the gardens. They lead, at the further extremity, into an open space, where much rabble assemble, where a sort of market is held, and where, on the neighbouring beach, the fishermen draw up their boats: fishermen bare-legged, bare-thighed, but legs and thighs not of flesh but mahogany. At other times he had been amused with the sudden contrast this scene affords with the well-dressed crowd within the gardens. It now disgusted him. There was nothing but noise and dirt, nothing but dust and heat, and glare. The various beggars who had often vexed him by their clamours, but had generally ended by extorting from him some pence and some good-humour, were quite intolerable. The little children, with their naked feet, tanned and dusted to the colour of the road, girt with their scanty complement of rags, with nothing on earth but their little shrill voices—their Signor! Signor!—to get their daily morsel with, and who had so often, when Mildred was at his side, received a whole handful of copper coins amongst them, now excited not the least commiseration, called forth nothing but some passing execration upon the slovenly government that could permit human life to sink down into all the wildness, and more than the destitution of the brute animal.