He smiled as he said "No."
"Won"t it be so nice," said she, "to catch a fresh ingenuous Saxon wandering innocently over the Bog of Allen, and send him back to his friends a Fenian!"
"Make me what you please, but don"t send me away."
"Tell me, really, what would you do if we made you take the oath?"
"Betray you, of course, the moment I got up to Dublin."
Nina"s eyes flashed angrily, as though such jesting was an offence.
"No, no, the shame of such treason would be intolerable; but you"d go your way and behave as though you never saw us."
"Oh, he could do that without the inducement of a perjury," said Nina, in Italian; and then added aloud, "Let"s go and make some music. Mr. Walpole sings charmingly, Kate, and is very obliging about it--at least he used to be."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "How that song makes me wish we were back again where I heard it first"]
"I am all that I used to be--towards that," whispered he, as she pa.s.sed him to take Kate"s arm and walk away.
"You don"t mean to have a thick neighbourhood about you," said Walpole.
"Have you any people living near?"
"Yes, we have a dear old friend--a Miss O"Shea, a maiden lady, who lives a few miles off. By the way, there"s something to show you--an old maid who hunts her own harriers."
"What! are you in earnest?"
"On my word, it is true! Nina can"t endure her; but Nina doesn"t care for hare-hunting, and, I"m afraid to say, never saw a badger drawn in her life."
"And have you?" asked he, almost with horror in his tone.
"I"ll show you three regular little turnspit dogs to-morrow that will answer that question."
"How I wish Lockwood had come out here with me," said Walpole, almost uttering a thought.
"That is, you wish he had seen a bit of barbarous Ireland he"d scarcely credit from mere description. But perhaps I"d have been better behaved before him. I"m treating you with all the freedom of an old friend of my cousin"s."
Nina had meanwhile opened the piano, and was letting her hands stray over the instrument in occasional chords; and then in a low voice, that barely blended its tones with the accompaniment, she sang one of those little popular songs of Italy, called "Stornelli"---wild, fanciful melodies, with that blended gaiety and sadness which the songs of a people are so often marked by.
"That is a very old favourite of mine," said Walpole, approaching the piano as noiselessly as though he feared to disturb the singer; and now he stole into a chair at her side. "How that song makes me wish we were back again, where I heard it first," whispered he gently.
"I forget where that was," said she carelessly.
"No, Nina, you do not," said he eagerly; "it was at Albano, the day we all went to Pallavicini"s villa."
"And I sang a little French song, "_Si vous n"avez rien a me dire_," which you were vain enough to imagine was a question addressed to yourself; and you made me a sort of declaration; do you remember all that?"
"Every word of it."
"Why don"t you go and speak to my cousin; she has opened the window and gone out upon the terrace, and I trust you understand that she expects you to follow her." There was a studied calm in the way she spoke that showed she was exerting considerable self-control.
"No, no, Nina, it is with you I desire to speak; to see you that I have come here."
"And so you do remember that you made me a declaration? It made me laugh afterwards as I thought it over."
"Made you laugh!"
"Yes, I laughed to myself at the ingenious way in which you conveyed to me what an imprudence it was in you to fall in love with a girl who had no fortune, and the shock it would give your friends when they should hear she was a Greek."
"How can you say such painful things, Nina? how can you be so pitiless as this?"
"It was you who had no pity, sir; I felt a deal of pity; I will not deny it was for myself. I don"t pretend to say that I could give a correct version of the way in which you conveyed to me the pain it gave you that I was not a princess, a Borromeo, or a Colonna, or an Altieri. That Greek adventurer, yes--you cannot deny it, I overheard these words myself. You were talking to an English girl, a tall, rather handsome person she was--I shall remember her name in a moment if you cannot help me to it sooner--a Lady Bickerstaffe--"
"Yes, there was a Lady Maude Bickerstaffe; she merely pa.s.sed through Rome for Naples."
"You called her a cousin, I remember."
"There is some cousinship between us; I forget exactly in what degree."
"Do try and remember a little more; remember that you forgot you had engaged me for the cotillon, and drove away with that blonde beauty--and she was a beauty, or had been a few years before--at all events, you lost all memory of the daughter of the adventurer."
"You will drive me distracted, Nina, if you say such things."
"I know it is wrong and it is cruel, and it is worse than wrong and cruel, it is what you English call underbred, to be so individually disagreeable, but this grievance of mine has been weighing very heavily on my heart, and I have been longing to tell you so."
"Why are you not singing, Nina?" cried Kate from the terrace. "You told me of a duet, and I think you are bent on having it without music."
"Yes, we are quarrelling fiercely," said Nina. "This gentleman has been rash enough to remind me of an unsettled score between us, and as he is the defaulter--"
"I dispute the debt."
"Shall I be the judge between you?" asked Kate.
"On no account; my claim once disputed, I surrender it," said Nina.
"I must say you are very charming company. You won"t sing, and you"ll only talk to say disagreeable things. Shall I make tea, and see if it will render you more amiable?"
"Do so, dearest, and then show Mr. Walpole the house; he has forgotten what brought him here, I really believe."
"You know that I have not," muttered he, in a tone of deep meaning.
"There"s no light now to show him the house; Mr. Walpole must come to-morrow, when papa will be at home and delighted to see him."
"May I really do this?"
"Perhaps, besides, your friend will have found the little inn so insupportable, that he too will join us. Listen to that sigh of poor Nina"s and you"ll understand what it is to be dreary!"
"No; I want my tea."
"And it shall have it," said Kate, kissing her with a petting affectation as she left the room.