The Signora was crumbling a bit of bread while she listened, and did not look up in answering: “I am quite ashamed of having made myself the subject of conversation for so long a time. Excuse me! Shall we go out to the loggia for a little while? It is very warm here.”
“Permit me!” Mr. Vane interposed. He had been looking at his daughter with great displeasure. “I would say, Isabel, that when you shall have thought and learned more, you will, I hope, understand the Signora better than you do now, and will try to imitate the justice which can give to all their due, and not rob Peter to pay Paul. Moreover, I would remind you that an intrusive familiarity is not
a right of any one, even to an inferior. And now, Signora, shall we go to the loggia?”
Perhaps it was because she had never before been so sharply criticised to her face; but the Signora had, certainly, never before known how pleasant it is to be defended. This pleasure showed itself in her manner as they went out. She usually held herself rather erect, and had an air of composure which might easily be called pride; but now there was a slight drooping of the head and bending of the form which gave her an appearance of softness, as of one who droops content under a protecting shadow. It was a softness which she, perhaps, needed.
They heard the door-bell ringing as they went up the loggia steps, and presently an exclamation in Isabel’s clear voice. She had not followed them, they now perceived, being a little displeased or hurt at the reproof to which she had been subjected.
“Who can have come?” said the Signora, listening. “It seems to be some one whom Isabel knows.”
Bianca stood at the railing and looked intently at the windows of the sala, faintly lighted from the room beyond. Two figures passed through the dimness and disappeared. They might be coming to the loggia, or they might be going to the sofa under that picture of Penelope and Ulysses—the Signora and Mr. Vane, both a little preoccupied, did not notice or care which. If any one wished to see them, he could come to them.
Bianca, alone, stood looking steadily. The full moon, shining in her face, had showed it for one moment as red as a rose; but as the minutes passed, that lovely color faded, growing paler, till it
was whiter than the light that veiled it, sparkling like silver on its beautiful outlines. Where was the sweet confidence that had been growing up in her heart for the last few weeks? Gone like a cloud-house built on a cloud. She was terrified at the fear and pain that had taken the place of it, and began to lose sight of the cause in trembling at the magnitude of the effect.
“It is surely wrong that anything in the world should make me feel so,” she murmured. “What have I been doing? I must have thought of this too much, and now is come my punishment. Here in Rome, where we shall stay but a few months, I ought to have given all my mind and heart to religion. It is a shame that I have not. I do not deserve the privilege of being here.”