“Well?” asked the Minister, as he watched the girl’s beautiful face set full to the dying sunset and saw the far-off look in her wonderful eyes.
“I have nothing to say, father—nothing,” was her quiet answer as she turned to him, and he saw that she was on the point of tears.
“Then you are content that it should be so? I mean you will permit me to give a favourable reply to the count?” he said, not without some hesitation. He had aged visibly since those quiet days in rural England, and the lines upon his pale brow gave him an expression of deep anxiety.
She sighed, and for a few moments made no response.
“Is it your wish that I should marry him?” she asked in a low, mechanical tone, her face pale, her hands trembling.
“I have no desire to place undue pressure upon you, my dear,” he said, placing his hand kindly upon her shoulder. “I merely ask you what response you wish me to give. He came to me while I was sitting alone in Rome three nights ago, and requested permission to pay his court to you.”
“And what response did you give?” she inquired in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
“I told him that I desired to hear your own views before giving him an answer.”
She was again silent, her face turned to the darkening valley. The sundown in Italy disappears less quickly than in England, for when the tints are on the point of vanishing they suddenly break out again and illumine some other point of the horizon. Twilight succeeds twilight, and the charm of closing day is prolonged.
“And what is your wish, father?” she asked presently, still looking blankly before her; for those grey fading lights seemed to be but the reflection of her own fading life and happiness.