And now, I should have imagined, for a single session, (and that an
initial one), he had had enough. I should have expected him to spend the
remainder of his day, a full man, in thankful tranquillity, in agreeable
retrospective rumination. But no. Indulgence, it soon appeared, had but
whetted his appetite. After a quarter-hour of walking about the garden,
during which his jumble of sensations and impressions,--her soft-glowing
eyes, her soft-drooping hair, under her wine-red hat; her slender
figure, in its fluttering summery muslin, and the faint, faint perfume
(like a far-away memory of rose-leaves) that hovered near her; her
smile, and the curves, when she smiled, of her rose-red lips, and the
gleam of her snow-white teeth; her laugh, her voice, her ivory voice;
her pretty crisp-cut English; her appreciation of Annunziata, her
disquieting presentiments concerning her; and his deep satisfaction in
her propinquity, her "companionship;" and the long shaded fragrant
avenue, and the bird-songs, and the gentle weather,--after a
quarter-hour of anything but thankful tranquillity, a quarter-hour of
unaccountable excitement and exaltation, during which his jumble of
impressions and sensations settled themselves, from ebullition, into
some sort of quiescence, he began to grow restlessly aware that, so far
from having had enough, he had had just a sufficient taste to make him
hunger keenly for more and more. It was ridiculous, but he couldn't help
it. And as there seemed no manner of likelihood that his hunger would
soon be fed, it was trying. At the best, he could not reasonably hope to
see her again before to-morrow; and even then--? What ghost of a reason
had he to hope that even then he could renew their conversation? He had
owed that to-day to the bare hazard of their ways lying together.
To-morrow, very likely, at the best, he might get a bow and a smile.
Very likely it might be days before he should again have anything
approaching a real talk with her. And what--a new consideration, that
struck a sudden terror to his soul--what if her visit to Frau Brandt
was to be a short one? What if to-morrow even, she were to depart? "Her
very ease in talking with me, a stranger, may quite well have been due
to the fact that she knew she would never see me again," he argued. ...
So he was working himself into a fine state of despondency, and the
world was rapidly being resolved into dust and ashes, when Heaven sent
him a diversion. Nay, indeed, Heaven sent him two diversions.