Miss Graham did, indeed, somehow diminish in the nearer perspective. She ceased to be overwhelming. When Colville lifted his eyes from bowing before her he perceived that she--was neither so very tall nor so very large, but possessed merely a generous amplitude of womanhood. But she was even more beautiful, with a sweet and youthful radiance of look that was very winning. If she had ceased to be the G.o.ddess she looked across the length of the _salon_, she had gained much by becoming an extremely lovely young girl; and her teeth, when she spoke, showed a fascinating little irregularity that gave her the last charm.
Mrs. Bowen glided away with the young clergyman, but Effie remained at Miss Graham"s side, and seemed to have hold of the left hand which the girl let hang carelessly behind her in the volume of her robe. The child"s face expressed an adoration of Miss Graham far beyond her allegiance to her mother.
"I began to doubt whether Mrs. Bowen was going to bring you at all," she said frankly, with an innocent, nervous laugh, which made favour for her with Colville. "She promised it early in the evening."
"She has used me much worse, Miss Graham," said Colville. "She has kept me waiting from the beginning of time. So that I have grown grey on my way up to you," he added, by an inspiration. "I was a comparatively young man when Mrs. Bowen first told me she was going to introduce me."
"Oh, how _good_!" said Miss Graham joyously. And her companion, after a moment"s hesitation, permitted herself a polite little t.i.tter. She had made a discovery; she had discovered that Mr. Colville was droll.
"I"m very glad you like it," he said, with a gravity that did not deceive them.
"Oh yes," sighed Miss Graham, with generous ardour. "Who but an American could say just such things? There"s the loveliest old lady here in Florence, who"s lived here thirty years, and she"s always going back and never getting back, and she"s so homesick she doesn"t know what to do, and she always says that Americans may not be _better_ than other people, but they are _different_."
"That"s very pretty. They"re different in everything but thinking themselves better. Their native modesty prevents that."
"I don"t exactly know what you mean," said Miss Graham, after a little hesitation.
"Well," returned Colville, "I haven"t thought it out very clearly myself yet. I may mean that the Americans differ from other people in not thinking well of themselves, or they may differ from them in not thinking well enough. But what I said had a very epigrammatic sound, and I prefer not to investigate it too closely."
This made Miss Graham and Miss Effie both cry out "Oh!" in delighted doubt of his intention. They both insensibly drifted a little nearer to him.
"There was a French lady said to me at the _table-d"hote_ this evening that she knew I was an American, because the Americans always strike the key of personality." He practised these economies of material in conversation quite recklessly, and often made the same incident or suggestion do duty round a whole company.
"Ah, I don"t believe that," said Miss Graham.
"Believe what?"
"That the Americans always talk about themselves."
"I"m not sure she meant that. You never can tell what a person means by what he says--or _she_."
"How shocking!".
"Perhaps the French lady meant that we always talk about other people.
That"s in the key of personality too."
"But I don"t believe we do," said Miss Graham. "At any rate, _she_ was talking about _us_, then."
"Oh, she accounted for that by saying there was a large American colony in Paris, who had corrupted the French, and taught them our pernicious habit of introspection."
"Do you think we"re very introspective?"
"Do you?"
"I know I"m not. I hardly ever think about myself at all. At any rate, not till it"s too late. That"s the great trouble. I wish I could. But I"m always studying other people. They"re so much more interesting."
"Perhaps if you knew yourself better you wouldn"t think so," suggested Colville.
"Yes, I know they are. I don"t think any young person can be interesting."
"Then what becomes of all the novels? They"re full of young persons."
"They"re ridiculous. If I were going to write a novel, I should take an old person for a hero--thirty-five or forty." She looked at Colville, and blushing a little, hastened to add, "I don"t believe that they begin to be interesting much before that time. Such flat things as young men are always saying! Don"t you remember that pa.s.sage somewhere in Heine"s _Pictures of Travel_, where he sees the hand of a lady coming out from under her mantle, when she"s confessing in a church, and he knows that it"s the hand of a young person who has enjoyed nothing and suffered nothing, it"s so smooth and flower-like? After I read that I hated the look of my hands--I was only sixteen, and it seemed as if I had had no more experience than a child. Oh, I like people to go _through_ something. Don"t you?"
"Well, yes, I suppose I do. Other people."
"No; but don"t you like it for yourself?"
"I can"t tell; I haven"t been through anything worth speaking of yet."
Miss Graham looked at him dubiously, but pursued with ardour: "Why, just getting back to Florence, after not having been here for so long--I should think it would be so romantic. Oh dear! I wish I were here for the second time."
"I"m afraid you wouldn"t like it so well," said Colville. "I wish I were here for the first time. There"s nothing like the first time in everything."
"Do you really think so?"
"Well, there"s nothing like the first time in Florence."
"Oh, I can"t imagine it. I should think that recalling the old emotions would be perfectly fascinating."
"Yes, if they"d come when you do call them. But they"re as contrary-minded as spirits from the vasty deep. I"ve been shouting around here for my old emotions all day, and I haven"t had a responsive squeak."
"Oh!" cried Miss Graham, staring full-eyed at him. "How delightful!"
Effie Bowen turned away her pretty little head and laughed, as if it might not be quite kind to laugh at a person"s joke to his face.
Stimulated by their appreciation, Colville went on with more nonsense.
"No; the only way to get at your old emotions in regard to Florence is to borrow them from somebody who"s having them fresh. What do _you_ think about Florence, Miss Graham?"
"I? I"ve been here two months."
"Then it"s too late?"
"No, I don"t know that it is. I keep feeling the strangeness all the time. But I can"t tell you. It"s very different from Buffalo, I can a.s.sure you."
"Buffalo? I can imagine the difference. And it"s not altogether to the disadvantage of Buffalo."
"Oh, have you been there?" asked Miss Graham, with a touching little eagerness. "Do you know anybody in Buffalo?"
"Some of the newspaper men; and I pa.s.s through there once a year on my way to New York--or used to. It"s a lively place."
"Yes, it is," sighed Miss Graham fondly.
"Do the girls of Buffalo still come out at night and dance by the light of the moon?"
"What!"
"Ah, I see," said Colville, peering at her under his thoughtfully knitted brows, "you do belong to another era. You don"t remember the old negro minstrel song."