But I laid up in my heart, as a sweet episode in my desolate life, the anxiety she had manifested for my safety.
Public conversation and the newspapers were for a time employed on the duel, but fortunately the truth was not suggested in the remotest degree.
I provided liberally for Foster, and sent him from the city. Where he now is I know not. He had informed Evelyn, by a letter, that, his health having improved, he designed to remove.
I had long since learned Frank's early history, and, through persons to whose patronage I had commended him and who had visited his studio at Florence, was well acquainted with all his proceedings. My charity towards him was producing ample fruits.
[pg 142]
A few months after the duel, Evelyn and I were making a tour in Europe.
At a comparatively early hour on the morning after our arrival in Florence, we proceeded, without previous announcement, to visit Frank's studio. Being ushered into an antechamber of the rather luxurious range of apartments, which, as I was aware, he occupied, in company with several other bachelors, I merely sent him word that a gentleman and lady had called to see his works, the servant informing us that he was at breakfast. Of this our own ears received a sufficient evidence, for, from an adjacent apartment, we heard not only the rattle of table service in industrious requisition, but conversation and laughter, which proved that the bachelors were jolly over their meal. Indeed, their mutual rallying was not altogether of the most delicate kind, and several favorite signoritas were allude to with various degrees of insinuation. In all this, Frank, whose voice I could well distinguish (its echoes had never left my ear), and which I was satisfied, from Evelyn's peculiar expression, that she also recognized, bore a prominent part. Evelyn was astonished. Frank soon appeared, looking the least like the imaginative and love-vitalized artist possible, and entirely like the gay young dog I knew he had become. The confused character of their greetings may be conceived. But of this I professed to be entirely uncognizant, and, after a hasty visit to the studio, gave Frank an invitation to dinner on the succeeding day, and we departed.
The money with which I had liberally supplied Frank had induced him to enter with a youthful zest into the pleasures of life, and his dream of love for Evelyn had attenuated into a mere memory. He was now a successful and courted artist. I was possessed of another fact in reference to him—that he was very much domesticated in an American family residing in the city, one of whose young lady members was greatly disposed, much to Frank's satisfaction, to recompense to him whatever subtractions from his fund of love had previously been wasted on Evelyn. Access to this family had been secured to Frank on my recommendation, given before they left America. I conveyed Evelyn to their residence, and, after also inviting them to our proposed dinner, we returned to our temporary home.
I was careful not to intrude on Evelyn during the evening, leaving her alone to struggle with the melancholy which I knew the incidents of the day must induce.