She was treating him more kindly than she had ever done since that Sunday afternoon when he came in with Imogene to say that he was going to stay. It might be merely because she had worn out her mood of severity, as people do, returning in good-humour to those with whom they were offended, merely through the reconciling force of time. She did not look at him, but this was better than meeting his eye with that interceptive glance. A strange peace touched his heart. Imogene and the young clergyman at the table across the room were intent on the book still; he was explaining and expatiating, and she listening. Colville saw that he had a fine head, and an intelligent, handsome, gentle face.
When he turned again to Mrs. Bowen it was with the illusion that she had been saying something; but she was, in fact, sitting mute, and her face, with its bright colour, showed pathetically thin.
"I should imagine that Venice would be good for you," he said.
"It"s still very harsh there, I hear. No; when we leave Florence, I think we will go to Switzerland."
"Oh, not to Madame Schebres"s," pleaded the child, turning upon her.
"No, not to Madame Schebres," consented the mother. She continued, addressing Colville: "I was thinking of Lausanne. Do you know Lausanne at all?"
"Only from Gibbon"s report. It"s hardly up to date."
"I thought of taking a house there for the summer," said Mrs. Bowen, playing with Effie"s fingers. "It"s pleasant by the lake, I suppose."
"It"s lovely by the lake!" cried the child. "Oh, do go, mamma! I could get a boat and learn to row. Here you can"t row, the Arno"s so swift."
"The air would bring you up," said Colville to Mrs. Bowen.
"Switzerland"s the only country where you"re perfectly sure of waking new every morning."
This idea interested the child. "Waking new!" she repeated.
"Yes; perfectly made over. You wake up another person. Shouldn"t you think that would be nice?"
"No."
"Well, I shouldn"t, in your place. But in mine, I much prefer to wake up another person. Only it"s pretty hard on the other person."
"How queer you are!" The child set her teeth for fondness of him, and seizing his cheeks between her hands, squeezed them hard, admiring the effect upon his features, which in some respects was not advantageous.
"Effie!" cried her mother sternly; and she dropped to her place again, and laid hold of Colville"s arm for protection. "You are really very rude. I shall send you to bed."
"Oh no, don"t, Mrs. Bowen," he begged. "I"m responsible for these violences. Effie used to be a very well behaved child before she began playing with me. It"s all my fault."
They remained talking on the sofa together, while Imogene and Mr. Morton continued to interest themselves in the book. From time to time she looked over at them, and then turned again to the young clergyman, who, when he had closed the book, rested his hands on its top and began to give an animated account of something, conjecturably his sojourn in Rome.
In a low voice, and with pauses adjusted to the occasional silences of the young people across the room, Mrs. Bowen told Colville how Mr.
Morton was introduced to her by an old friend who was greatly interested in him. She said, frankly, that she had been able to be of use to him, and that he was now going back to America very soon; it was as if she were privy to the conjecture that had come to the surface in his talk with Mr. Waters, and wished him to understand exactly how matters stood with the young clergyman and herself. Colville, indeed, began to be more tolerant of him; he succeeded in praising the sermon he had heard him preach.
"Oh, he has talent," said Mrs. Bowen.
They fell into the old, almost domestic strain, from which she broke at times with an effort, but returning as if helplessly to it. He had the gift of knowing how not to take an advantage with women; that sense of unconstraint in them fought in his favour; when Effie dropped her head wearily against his arm, her mother even laughed in sending her off to bed; she had hitherto been serious. Imogene said she would go to see her tucked in, and that sent the clergyman to say good-night to Mrs. Bowen, and to put an end to Colville"s audience.
In these days, when Colville came every night to Palazzo Pinti, he got back the tone he had lost in the past fortnight. He thought that it was the complete immunity from his late pleasures, and the regular and sufficient sleep, which had set him firmly on his feet again, but he did not inquire very closely. Imogene went two or three times, after she had declared she would go no more, from the necessity women feel of blunting the edge of comment; but Colville profited instantly and fully by the release from the parties which she offered him. He did not go even to afternoon tea-drinkings; the "days" of the different ladies, which he had been so diligent to observe, knew him no more. At the hours when society a.s.sembled in this house or that and inquired for him, or wondered about him, he was commonly taking a nap, and he was punctually in bed every night at eleven, after his return from Mrs. Bowen"s.
He believed, of course, that he went there because he now no longer met Imogene elsewhere, and he found the house pleasanter than it had ever been since the veglione. Mrs. Bowen"s relenting was not continuous, however. There were times that seemed to be times of question and of struggle with her, when she vacillated between the old cordiality and the later alienation; when she went beyond the former, or lapsed into moods colder and more repellent than the latter. It would have been difficult to mark the moment when these struggles ceased altogether, and an evening pa.s.sed in unbroken kindness between them. But afterwards Colville could remember an emotion of grateful surprise at a subtle word or action of hers in which she appeared to throw all restraint--scruple or rancour, whichever it might be--to the winds, and become perfectly his friend again. It must have been by compliance with some wish or a.s.sent to some opinion of his; what he knew was that he was not only permitted, he was invited, to feel himself the most favoured guest. The charming smile, so small and sweet, so very near to bitterness, came back to her lips, the deeply fringed eyelids were lifted to let the sunny eyes stream upon him. She did, now, whatever he asked her. She consulted his taste and judgment on many points; she consented to resume, when she should be a little stronger, their visits to the churches and galleries: it would be a shame to go away from Florence without knowing them thoroughly. It came to her asking him to drive with her and Imogene in the Cascine; and when Imogene made some excuse not to go, Mrs. Bowen did not postpone the drive, but took Colville and Effie.
They drove quite down to the end of the Cascine, and got out there to admire the gay monument, with the painted bust, of the poor young Indian prince who died in Florence. They strolled all about, talking of the old times in the Cascine, twenty years before; and walking up the road beside the ca.n.a.l, while the carriage slowly followed, they stopped to enjoy the peasants lying asleep in the gra.s.s on the other bank. Colville and Effie gathered wild-flowers, and piled them in her mother"s lap when she remounted to the carriage and drove along while they made excursions into the little dingles beside the road. Some people who overtook them in these sylvan pleasures reported the fact at a reception to which they were going, and Mrs. Amsden, whose mind had been gradually clearing under the simultaneous withdrawal of Imogene and Colville from society, professed herself again as thickly clouded as a weather-gla.s.s before a storm. She appealed to the sympathy of others against this hardship.
Mrs. Bowen took Colville home to dinner; Mr. Morton was coming, she said, and he must come too. At table the young clergyman made her his compliment on her look of health, and she said, Yes; she had been driving, and she believed that she needed nothing but to be in the air a little more, as she very well could, now the spring weather was really coming. She said that they had been talking all winter of going to Fiesole, where Imogene had never been yet; and upon comparison it appeared that none of them had yet been to Fiesole except herself. Then they must all go together, she said; the carriage would hold four very comfortably.
"Ah! that leaves me out," said Colville, who had caught sight of Effie"s fallen countenance.
"Oh no. How is that? It leaves Effie out."
"It"s the same thing. But I might ride, and Effie might give me her hand to hold over the side of the carriage; that would sustain me."
"We could take her between us, Mrs. Bowen," suggested Imogene. "The back seat is wide."
"Then the party is made up," said Colville, "and Effie hasn"t demeaned herself by asking to go where she wasn"t invited."
The child turned inquiringly toward her mother, who met her with an indulgent smile, which became a little flush of grateful appreciation when it reached Colville; but Mrs. Bowen ignored Imogene in the matter altogether.
The evening pa.s.sed delightfully. Mr. Morton had another book which he had brought to show Imogene, and Mrs. Bowen sat a long time at the piano, striking this air and that of the songs which she used to sing when she was a girl: Colville was trying to recall them. When he and Imogene were left alone for their adieux, they approached each other in an estrangement through which each tried to break.
"Why don"t you scold me?" she asked. "I have neglected you the whole evening."
"How have you neglected me?"
"How? Ah! if you don"t know----"
"No. I dare say I must be very stupid. I saw you talking with Mr.
Morton, and you seemed interested. I thought I"d better not intrude."
She seemed uncertain of his intention, and then satisfied of its simplicity.
"Isn"t it pleasant to have Mrs. Bowen in the old mood again?" he asked.
"Is she in the old mood?"
"Why, yes. Haven"t you noticed how cordial she is?
"I thought she was rather colder than usual."
"Colder!" The chill of the idea penetrated even through the density of Colville"s selfish content. A very complex emotion, which took itself for indignation, throbbed from his heart. "Is she cold with you, Imogene?"
"Oh, if you saw nothing----"
"No; and I think you must be mistaken. She never speaks of you without praising you."
"Does she speak of me?" asked the girl, with her honest eyes wide open upon him.
"Why, no," Colville acknowledged. "Come to reflect, it"s I who speak of you. But how--how is she cold with you?"
"Oh, I dare say it"s a delusion of mine. Perhaps I"m cold with her."
"Then don"t be so, my dear! Be sure that she"s your friend--true and good. Good night."
He caught the girl in his arms, and kissed her tenderly. She drew away, and stood a moment with her repellent fingers on his breast.