"Did you?" She put her hand eagerly into his, and they strolled off together. After a first motion to accompany them, Imogene sat down beside Mrs. Amsden, answering quietly the talk of the old lady, and seeming in nowise concerned about the expedition for violets. Except for a dull first glance, she did not look that way. Colville stood in the border of the gra.s.s, and the child ran quickly hither and thither in it, stooping from time to time upon the flowers. Then she came out to where he stood, and showed her bunch of violets, looking up into the face which he bent upon her, while he trifled with his cane. He had a very fatherly air with her.
"I think I"ll go and see what they"ve found," said Imogene irrelevantly, to a remark of Mrs. Amsden"s about the expensiveness of Madame Bossi"s bonnets.
"Well," said the old lady. Imogene started, and the little girl ran to meet her. She detained Effie with her admiration of the violets till Colville lounged reluctantly up. "Go and show them to Mrs. Amsden," she said, giving back the violets, which she had been smelling. The child ran on. "Mr. Colville, I want to speak with you."
"Yes," said Colville helplessly.
"Why are you going away?"
"Why? Oh, I"ve accomplished the objects--or no-objects--I came for," he said, with dreary triviality, "and I must hurry away to other fields of activity." He kept his eyes on her face, which he saw full of a pa.s.sionate intensity, working to some sort of overflow.
"That is not true, and you needn"t say it to spare me. You are going away because Mrs. Bowen said something to you about me."
"Not quite that," returned Colville gently.
"No; it was something that she said to me about you. But it"s the same thing. It makes no difference. I ask you not to go for that."
"Do you know what you are saying, Imogene?"
"Yes."
Colville waited a long moment. "Then, I thank you, you dear girl, and I am going to-morrow, all the same. But I shan"t forget this; whatever my life is to be, this will make it less unworthy and less unhappy. If it could buy anything to give you joy, to add some little grace to the good that must come to you, I would give it. Some day you"ll meet the young fellow whom you"re to make immortal, and you must tell him of an old fellow who knew you afar off, and understood how to worship you for an angel of pity and unselfishness. Ah, I hope he"ll understand, too!
Good-bye." If he was to fly, that was the sole instant. He took her hand, and said again, "Good-bye." And then he suddenly cried, "Imogene, do you wish me to stay?"
"Yes!" said the girl, pouring all the intensity of her face into that whisper.
"Even if there had been nothing said to make me go away--should you still wish me to stay?"
"Yes."
He looked her in the starry, lucid eyes, where a divine fervour deepened. He sighed in nerveless perplexity; it was she who had the courage.
"It"s a mistake! You mustn"t! I am too old for you! It would be a wrong and a cruelty! Yes, you must let me go, and forget me. I have been to blame. If Mrs. Bowen has blamed me, she was right--I deserved it; I deserved all she could say against me."
"She never said anything against you. Do you think I would have let her?
No; it was I that said it, and I blamed you. It was because I thought that you were--you were--"
"Trifling with you? How could you think that?"
"Yes, I know now how it was, and it makes you seem all the grander to me. Did you think I cared for your being older than I was? I never cared for it--I never hardly thought of it after the very first. I tried to make you understand that, and how it hurt me to have you speak of it.
Don"t you think that I could see how good you were? Do you suppose that all I want is to be happy? I don"t care for that--I despise it, and I always hate myself for seeking my own pleasure, if I find myself doing it. I have seen enough of life to know what _that_ comes to! And what hurt me worst of all was that you seemed to believe that I cared for nothing but amusing myself, when I wished to be something better, higher! It"s nothing whether you are of my age or not, if--if--you care for me."
"Imogene!"
"All that I ask is to be with you, and try to make you forget what"s been sad in your life, and try to be of use to you in whatever you are doing, and I shall be prouder and gladder of that than anything that people _call_ happiness."
Colville stood holding her hand, while she uttered these ideas and incoherent repet.i.tions of them, with a deep sense of powerlessness. "If I believed that I could keep you from regretting this--"
"What should I regret? I won"t let you depreciate yourself--make yourself out not good enough for the best. Oh, I know how it happened!
But now you shall never think of it again. No; I will not let you. That is the only way you could make me regret anything."
"I am going to stay," said Colville. "But on my own terms. I will be bound to you, but you shall not be bound to me."
"You doubt me! I would rather have you go! No; stay. And let me prove to you how wrong you are. I mustn"t ask more than that. Only give me the chance to show you how different I am from what you think--how different you are, too."
"Yes. But you must be free."
"Well."
"What are they doing so long there?" asked Mrs. Amsden of Effie, putting her gla.s.ses to her eyes. "I can"t see."
"They are just holding hands," said the child, with an easy satisfaction in the explanation, which perhaps the old lady did not share. "He always holds my hand when he is with me."
"Does he, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Amsden, with a cackle. She added, "That"s very polite of him, isn"t it? You must be a great favourite with Mr. Colville. You will miss him when he"s gone."
"Yes. He"s very nice."
Colville and Imogene returned, coming slowly across the loose, neglected gra.s.s toward the old woman"s seat. She rose as they came up.
"You don"t seem to have succeeded so well in getting flowers for Miss Graham as for the other ladies. But perhaps you didn"t find her favourite over there. What is your favourite flower, Miss Graham? Don"t say you have none! I didn"t know that I preferred scarlet anemones. Were there no forget-me-nots over there in the gra.s.s?"
"There was no occasion for them," answered Colville.
"You always did make such pretty speeches!" said the old lady. "And they have such an orphic character, too; you can interpret them in so many different ways. Should you mind saying just what you meant by that one?"
"Yes, very much," replied Colville.
The old lady laughed with cheerful resignation. She would as lief report that reply of his as another. Even more than a man whom she could entangle in his speech she liked a man who could slip through the toils with unfailing ease. Her talk with such a man was the last consolation which remained to her from a life of harmless coquetries.
"I will refer it to Mrs. Bowen," she said. "She is a very wise woman, and she used to know you a great while ago."
"If you like, I will do it for you, Mrs. Amsden. I"m going to see her."
"To renew your adieux? Well, why not? Parting is such sweet sorrow! And if I were a young man I would go to say good-bye to Mrs. Bowen as often as she would let me. Now tell me honestly, Mr. Colville, did you ever see such an exquisite, perfect _creature_?"
"Oh, that"s asking a good deal."
"What?"
"To tell you a thing honestly. How did you come here, Mrs. Amsden?"
"In Mrs. Bowen"s carriage. I sent it round from the Pitti entrance to the Porta Romana. It"s waiting there now, I suppose."
"I thought you had been corrupted, somehow. Your zeal is carriage-bought. It _is_ a delightful vehicle. Do you think you could give me a lift home in it?"
"Yes, indeed. I"ve always a seat for you in my carriage. To Hotel d"Atene?"
"No, to Palazzo Pinti."