“I didn’t believe I should sleep a wink on this first day,” she said; “but I have slept the whole time. One becomes accustomed to everything. But where can Bianca be? I’m not at all sure she did right to go out alone, and at this hour. That girl does the most extraordinary things sometimes, quiet as she seems. I sometimes think, Signora, that Bianca has great force of will.”
Uttering this last remark, the young woman looked at her friend as if she expected an astonished denial. The Signora, on the contrary, replied with a rather significant smile: “Only ‘sometimes,’ my dear? If your sister had a motive worthy, her will would be strong enough to oppose the whole world.”
“Bianca!” cried Isabel in astonishment. “Why, she is the softest creature alive.”
The Signora was arranging tea-cups on a table drawn up before one of the large sofas, and waited until her hands were free of them before replying, as she wished to speak with emphasis. “Do you think,” she said then, “that it is only the positive, opinionated women who have firmness of character? My experience is that your
women who are constantly driving and directing people in small things can almost always be themselves driven in great things, while those who do not like to make a fuss about trifles will stand their ground when it comes to a matter of importance. If the truth could be known, I believe it would be found that the world’s heroines of action and of suffering have been those same soft creatures in ordinary circumstances. And here’s the child now.”
In fact, the entrance-door opened at that moment from without, and Bianca Vane came in with cheeks as red as roses. She had begged the Signora’s permission to go out instead of going to bed, promising to go no farther than Santa Maria Maggiore, which was but five minutes’ walk from the house.
Isabel looked at her sister very gravely while she stood pulling the great key out of the lock, smiling to herself, and tugging away with the softest, prettiest hands in the world. The elder sister had been accustomed to be called, and to consider herself, the stronger of the two, and she was not altogether certain now that the Signora had not been jesting.
The great Italian key, large enough for a prison, was got out of the lock, the door shut, half by the wind and half by the lady, with a force that made its three little bells and its two immense iron bolts rattle and ring, and Bianca went straight to the Signora and kissed her—a somewhat unusual demonstration. “I’ve been so happy!” she whispered close to the cheek her lips had touched. “How beautiful it is! You must let me have a ‘weakness’ for your church and its bells, and all that belongs to it.”
A nod and glance of intelligence
were exchanged between the two, and the girl went to take off her bonnet.