"Am I to read it?" asked he.
"Yes, if you like. It is from Augustus Bramleigh, a person you feel some interest in."
Pracontal took up the note, and seemed to go very carefully over its contents.
"So then," said he, as he finished, "he thinks it better not to meet--not to know me."
"Which is no reason on earth for being wanting in a proper attention to me," said she, angrily. "To leave Rome without calling here, without consulting my wishes, and learning my intentions for the future, is a gross forgetfulness of proper respect."
"I take it, the news of the trial was too much for him. Longworth said it would, and that the comments of the press would be insupportable besides."
"But what have Ito do with that, sir? Mr. Bramleigh"s first duty was to come here. _I_ should have been thought of. _I_ was the first person this family should have remembered in their hour of difficulty."
"There was no intentional want of respect in it, I "ll be bound," cried Pracontal. "It was just a bashful man"s dread of an awkward moment--that English terror of what you call a "scene"--that sent him off."
"It is generous of you, sir, to become his apologist. I only wonder--"
Here she stopped and seemed confused.
"Go on, my Lady. Pray finish what you began."
"No, sir. It is as well unsaid."
"But it was understood, my Lady, just as well as if it had been uttered.
Your Ladyship wondered who was to apologize for _me_."
She grew crimson as he spoke; but a faint smile seemed to say how thoroughly she relished that southern keenness that could divine a half-uttered thought.
"How quick you are!" said she, without a trace of irritation.
"Say, rather, how quick he ought to be who attempts to parry _you_ at fence. And, after all," said he, in a lighter tone, "is it not as well that he has spared us all an embarra.s.sment? _I_ could not surely have been able to condole with _him_, and how could he have congratulated _me?_"
"Pardon me, Count, but the matter, so far as I learn, is precisely as it was before. There is neither subject for condolence nor gratulation."
"So far as the verdict of the jury went, my Lady, you are quite right; but what do you say to that larger, wider verdict p.r.o.nounced by the press, and repeated in a thousand forms by the public? May I read you one pa.s.sage, only one, from my lawyer Mr. Kelson"s letter?"
"Is it short?"
"Very short."
"And intelligible?"
"Most intelligible."
"Read it, then."
"Here it is," said he, opening a letter, and turning to the last page.
""Were I to sum up what is the popular opinion of the result, I could not do it better than repeat what a City capitalist said to me this morning: "I"d rather lend Count Pracontal twenty thousand pounds to-day, than take Mr. Bramleigh"s mortgage for ten."""
"Let me read that. I shall comprehend his meaning better than by hearing it. This means evidently," said she, after reading the pa.s.sage, "that your chances are better than his."
"Kelson tells me success is certain."
"And your cautious friend Mr.------; I always forget that man"s name?"
"Longworth?"
"Yes, Longworth. What does he say?"
"He is already in treaty with me to let him have a small farm which adjoins his grounds, and which he would like to throw into his lawn."
"Seriously?"
"No, not a bit seriously; but we pa.s.s the whole morning building these sort of castles in Spain, and the grave way that he entertains such projects ends by making me believe I am actually the owner of Castello and all its belongings."
"Tell me some of your plans," said she, with a livelier interest than she had yet shown.
"First of all, reconciliation, if that be its proper name, with all that calls itself Bramleigh. I don"t want to be deemed a usurper, but a legitimate monarch. It is to be a restoration."
"Then you ought to marry Nelly. I declare, that never struck me before."
"Nor has it yet occurred to me, my Lady," said he, with a faint show of irritation.
"And why not, sir? Is it that you look higher?"
"I look higher," said he; and there was a solemn intensity in his air and manner as he spoke.
"I declare, Monsieur de Pracontal, it is scarcely delicate to say this to _me_."
"Your Ladyship insists on my being candid, even at the hazard of my courtesy."
"I do not complain of your candor, sir. It is your--your--"
"My pretension?"
"Well, yes, pretension will do."
"Well, my Lady, I will not quarrel with the phrase. I do "pretend,"
as we say in French. In fact, I have been little other than a pretender these last few years."
"And what is it you pretend to? May I ask the question?"
"I do not know if I may dare to answer it," said he, slowly.... "I will explain what I mean," added he, after a brief silence, and drawing his chair somewhat nearer to where she sat. "I will explain. If, in one of my imaginative gossipries with a friend, I were to put forward some claim--some ambition--which would sound absurd coming from me _now_, but which, were I the owner of a great estate, would neither be extravagant nor ridiculous, the memory of that unlucky pretension would live against me ever after, and the laugh that my vanity excited would ring in my ears long after I had ceased to regard the sentiment as vanity at all.
Do you follow me?"
"Yes, I believe I do. I would only have you remember that I am not Mr.
Longworth."
"A reason the more for my caution."