CHAPTER I

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, William Flis, and Distributed Proofreaders

ELEANOR

BY

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALBERT STERNER_

1900

TO ITALY THE BELOVED AND BEAUTIFUL,

INSTRUCTRESS OF OUR PAST,

DELIGHT OF OUR PRESENT,

COMRADE OF OUR FUTURE:--

THE HEART OF AN ENGLISHWOMAN

OFFERS THIS BOOK.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ELEANOR

THE VILLA

LUCY FOSTER

THE BEAUTIFYING OF LUCY

THE LOGGIA

FATHER BENECKE

PART I.

'I would that you were all to me,

You that are just so much, no more.

Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!

Where does the fault lie? What the core

O' the wound, since wound must be?'

CHAPTER I

'Let us be quite clear, Aunt Pattie--when does this young woman arrive?'

'In about half an hour. But really, Edward, you need take no trouble! she

is coming to visit me, and I will see that she doesn't get in your way.

Neither you nor Eleanor need trouble your heads about her.'

Miss Manisty--a small elderly lady in a cap--looked at her nephew with

a mild and deprecating air. The slight tremor of the hands, which were

crossed over the knitting on her lap, betrayed a certain nervousness; but

for all that she had the air of managing a familiar difficulty in familiar

ways.

The gentleman addressed shook his head impatiently.

'One never prepares for these catastrophes till they actually arrive,'

he muttered, taking up a magazine that lay on the table near him, and

restlessly playing with the leaves.

'I warned you yesterday.'

'And I forgot--and was happy. Eleanor--what are we going to do with Miss

Foster?'

A lady, who had been sitting at some little distance, rose and came

forward.

'Well, I should have thought the answer was simple. Here we are fifteen

miles from Rome. The trains might be better--still there are trains. Miss

Foster has never been to Europe before. Either Aunt Pattie's maid or mine

can take her to all the proper things--or there are plenty of people in

Rome--the Westertons--the Borrows?--who at a word from Aunt Pattie would

fly to look after her and take her about. I really don't see that you need

be so miserable!'

Mrs. Burgoyne stood looking down in some amusement at the aunt and nephew.

Edward Manisty, however, was not apparently consoled by her remarks. He

began to pace up and down the salon in a disturbance out of all proportion

to its cause. And as he walked he threw out phrases of ill-humour, so

that at last Miss Manisty, driven to defend herself, put the irresistible

question--

'Then why--why--my dear Edward, did you make me invite her? For it was

really his doing--wasn't it, Eleanor?'

'Yes--I am witness!'

'One of those abominable flashes of conscience that have so much to

answer for!' said Manisty, throwing up his hand in annoyance.--'If she

had come to us in Rome, one could have provided for her. But here in this

solitude--just at the most critical moment of one's work--and it's all

very well--but one can't treat a young lady, when she is actually in one's

house, as if she were the tongs!'

He stood beside the window, with his hands on his sides, moodily looking

out. Thus strongly defined against the sunset light, he would have

impressed himself on a stranger as a man no longer in his first youth,

extraordinarily handsome so far as the head was concerned, but of a

somewhat irregular and stunted figure; stunted, however, only in comparison

with what it had to carry; for in fact he was of about middle height. But

the head, face and shoulders were all remarkably large and powerful; the

colouring--curly black hair, grey eyes, dark complexion--singularly vivid;

and the lines of the brow, the long nose, the energetic mouth, in their

mingled force and perfection, had made the stimulus of many an artist

before now. For Edward Manisty was one of those men of note whose portraits

the world likes to paint: and this 'Olympian head' of his was well known

in many a French and English studio, through a fine drawing of it made

by Legros when Manisty was still a youth at Oxford. 'Begun by David--and

finished by Rembrandt': so a young French painter had once described Edward

Manisty.

The final effect of this discord, however, was an effect of power--of

personality--of something that claimed and held attention. So at least it

was described by Manisty's friends. Manisty's enemies, of whom the world

contained no small number, had other words for it. But women in general

took the more complimentary view.

The two women now in his company were clearly much affected by the

force--wilfulness--extravagance--for one might call it by any of these

names--that breathed from the man before them. Miss Manisty, his aunt,

followed his movements with her small blinking eyes, timidly uneasy, but

yet visibly conscious all the time that she had done nothing that any

reasonable man could rationally complain of; while in the manner towards

him of his widowed cousin Mrs. Burgoyne, in the few words of banter or

remonstrance that she threw him on the subject of his aunt's expected

visitor, there was an indulgence, a deference even, that his irritation

scarcely deserved.

'At least, give me some account of this girl'--he said, breaking in upon

his aunt's explanations. 'I have really not given her a thought--and--good

heavens!--she will be here, you say, in half an hour. Is she

young--stupid--pretty? Has she any experience--any conversation?'

'I read you Adèle's letter on Monday,' said Miss Manisty, in a tone of

patience--'and I told you then all I knew--but I noticed you didn't listen.

I only saw her myself for a few hours at Boston. I remember she was

rather good-looking--but very shy, and not a bit like all the other girls

one was seeing. Her clothes were odd, and dowdy, and too old for her

altogether,--which struck me as curious, for the American girls, even the

country ones, have such a natural turn for dressing themselves. Her Boston

cousins didn't like it, and they tried to buy her things--but she was

difficult to manage--and they had to give it up. Still they were very fond

of her, I remember. Only she didn't let them show it much. Her manners

were much stiffer than theirs. They said she was very countrified and

simple--that she had been brought up quite alone by their old uncle, in a

little country town--and hardly ever went away from home.'

'And Edward never saw her?' inquired Mrs. Burgoyne, with a motion of the

head towards Manisty.

'No. He was at Chicago just those days. But you never saw anything like the

kindness of the cousins! Luncheons and dinners!'--Miss Manisty raised her

little gouty hands--'my dear--when we left Boston I never wanted to eat

again. It would be simply indecent if we did nothing for this girl. English

people are so ungrateful this side of the water. It makes me hot when I

think of all they do for us.'

The small lady's blanched and wrinkled face reddened a little with a colour

which became her. Manisty, lost in irritable reflection, apparently took no

notice.

'But why did they send her out all alone?' said Mrs. Burgoyne. 'Couldn't

they have found some family for her to travel with?'

'Well, it was a series of accidents. She did come over with some Boston

people--the Porters--we knew very well. And they hadn't been three days in

London before one of the daughters developed meningitis, and was at the

point of death. And of course they could go nowhere and see nothing--and

poor Lucy Foster felt herself in the way. Then she was to have joined some

other people in Italy, and _they_ changed their plans. And at last I got a

letter from Mrs. Porter--in despair--asking me if I knew of anyone in Rome

who would take her in and chaperon her. And then--well, then you know the

rest.'

And the speaker nodded again, still more significantly, towards her nephew.

'No, not all,' said Mrs. Burgoyne, laughing. 'I remember he telegraphed.'

'Yes. He wouldn't even wait for me to write. No--"Of course we must have

the girl!" he said. "She can join us at the villa. And they'll want to

know, so I'll wire." And out he went. And then that evening I had to write

and ask her to stay as long as she wished--and--well, there it is!'

'And hence these tears,' said Mrs. Burgoyne. 'What possessed him?'

'Well, I think it was conscience,' said the little spinster, plucking up

spirit. 'I know it was with me. There had been some Americans calling on

us that day--you remember--those charming Harvard people? And somehow

it recalled to us both what a fuss they had made with us--and how kind

everybody was. At least I suppose that was how Edward felt. I know I did.'

Manisty paused in his walk. For the first time his dark whimsical face was

crossed by an unwilling smile--slight but agreeable.

'It is the old story,' he said. 'Life would be tolerable but for one's

virtues. All this time, I beg to point out, Aunt Pattie, that you have

still told us nothing about the young lady--except something about her

clothes, which doesn't matter.'

Mrs. Burgoyne's amused gesture showed the woman's view of this remark. Miss

Manisty looked puzzled.

'Well--I don't know. Yes--I have told you a great deal. The Lewinsons

apparently thought her rather strange. Adèle said she couldn't tell what to

be at with her--you never knew what she would like or dislike. Tom Lewinson

seems to have liked her better than Adèle did. He said "there was no

nonsense about her--and she never kept a fellow waiting." Adèle says she

is the oddest mixture of knowledge and ignorance. She would ask the most

absurd elementary questions--and then one morning Tom found out that she

was quite a Latin scholar, and had read Horace and Virgil, and all the

rest.'

'Good God!' said Manisty under his breath, resuming his walk.

'And when they asked her to play, she played--quite respectably.'

'Of course:--two hours' practising in the morning,--I foresaw it,' said

Manisty, stopping short. 'Eleanor, we have been like children sporting over

the abyss!'

Mrs. Burgoyne rose with a laugh--a very soft and charming laugh--by no

means the least among the various gifts with which nature had endowed her.

'Oh, civilisation has resources,' she said--'Aunt Pattie and I will take

care of you. Now we have got a quarter of an hour to dress in. Only

first--one must really pay one's respects to this sunset.'

And she stepped out through an open door upon a balcony beyond. Then

turning, with a face of delight, she beckoned to Manisty, who followed.

'Every night more marvellous than the last'--she said, hanging over the

balustrade--'and one seems to be here in the high box of a theatre, with

the sun playing pageants for our particular benefit.'

Before them, beneath them indeed, stretched a scene, majestic,

incomparable. The old villa in which they stood was built high on the ridge

of the Alban Hills. Below it, olive-grounds and vineyards, plough-lands and

pine plantations sank, slope after slope, fold after fold, to the Campagna.

And beyond the Campagna, along the whole shining line of the west, the sea

met the sunset; while to the north, a dim and scattered whiteness rising

from the plain--was Rome.

The sunset was rushing to its height through every possible phase of

violence and splendour. From the Mediterranean, storm-clouds were rising

fast to the assault and conquest of the upper sky, which still above the

hills shone blue and tranquil. But the north-west wind and the sea were

leagued against it. They sent out threatening fingers and long spinning

veils of cloud across it--skirmishers that foretold the black and serried

lines, the torn and monstrous masses behind. Below these wild tempest

shapes, again,--in long spaces resting on the sea--the heaven was at peace,

shining in delicate greens and yellows, infinitely translucent and serene,

above the dazzling lines of water. Over Rome itself there was a strange

massing and curving of the clouds. Between their blackness and the deep

purple of the Campagna, rose the city--pale phantom--upholding one great

dome, and one only, to the view of night and the world. Round and above

and behind, beneath the long flat arch of the storm, glowed a furnace

of scarlet light. The buildings of the city were faint specks within

its fierce intensity, dimly visible through a sea of fire. St. Peter's

alone, without visible foundation or support, had consistence, form,

identity.--And between the city and the hills, waves of blue and purple

shade, forerunners of the night, stole over the Campagna towards the higher

ground. But the hills themselves were still shining, still clad in rose and

amethyst, caught in gentler repetition from the wildness of the west. Pale

rose even the olive-gardens; rose the rich brown fallows, the emerging

farms; while drawn across the Campagna from north to south, as though some

mighty brush had just laid it there for sheer lust of colour, sheer joy in

the mating it with the rose,--one long strip of sharpest, purest green.

Mrs. Burgoyne turned at last from the great spectacle to her companion.

'One has really no adjectives left,' she said. 'But I had used mine up

within a week.'

'It still gives you so much pleasure?' he said, looking at her a little

askance.

Her face changed at once.

'And you?--you are beginning to be tired of it?'

'One gets a sort of indigestion.--Oh! I shall be all right to-morrow.'

Both were silent for a moment. Then he resumed.--

'I met General Fenton in the Borgia rooms this morning.'

She turned, with a quick look of curiosity.

'Well?'

'I hadn't seen him since I met him at Simla three years ago. I always

found him particularly agreeable then. We used to ride together and talk

together,--and he put me in the way of seeing a good many things. This

morning he received me with a change of manner--can't exactly describe it;

but it was not flattering! So I presently left him to his own devices and

went on into another room. Then he followed me, and seemed to wish to talk.

Perhaps he perceived that he had been unfriendly, and thought he would

make amends. But I was rather short with him. We had been real friends;

we hadn't met for three years; and I thought he might have behaved

differently. He asked me a number of questions, however, about last year,

about my resignation, and so forth; and I answered as little as I could. So

presently he looked at me and laughed--"You remind me," he said, "of what

somebody said of Peel--that he was bad to go up to in the stable!--But what

on earth are you in the stable for?--and not in the running?"'

Mrs. Burgoyne smiled.

'He was evidently bored with the pictures!' she said, dryly.

Manisty gave a shrug. 'Oh! I let him off. I wouldn't be drawn. I told him

I had expressed myself so much in public there was nothing more to say.

"H'm," he said, "they tell me at the Embassy you're writing a book!" You

should have seen the little old fellow's wizened face--and the scorn of

it! So I inquired whether there was any objection to the writing of books.

"Yes!"--he said--"when a man can do a d----d sight better for himself--as

you could! Everyone tells me that last year you had the ball at your feet."

"Well,"--I said--"and I kicked it--and am still kicking it--in my own

way. It mayn't be yours--or anybody else's--but wait and see." He shook

his head. "A man with what _were_ your prospects can't afford escapades.

It's all very well for a Frenchman; it don't pay in England." So then I

maintained that half the political reputations of the present day were

based on escapades. "Whom do you mean?"--he said--"Randolph Churchill?--But

Randolph's escapades were always just what the man in the street

understood. As for your escapade, the man in the street can't make head or

tail of it. That's just the, difference."'

Mrs. Burgoyne laughed--but rather impatiently.

'I should like to know when General Fenton ever considered the man in the

street!'

'Not at Simla certainly. There you may despise him.--But the old man is

right enough as to the part he plays in England.--I gathered that all my

old Indian friends thought I had done for myself. There was no sympathy for

me anywhere. Oh!--as to the cause I upheld--yes. But none as to the mode of

doing it.'

'Well--there is plenty of sympathy elsewhere! What does it matter what

dried-up officials like General Fenton choose to think about it?'

'Nothing--so long as there are no doubts inside to open the gates to the

General Fentons outside!'

He looked at her oddly--half smiling, half frowning.

'The doubts are traitors. Send them to execution!' He shook his head.

'Do you remember that sentence we came across yesterday in Chateaubriand's

letters "As to my career--I have gone from shipwreck to shipwreck." What if

I am merely bound on the same charming voyage?'

'I accept the comparison,' she said with vivacity. 'End as he did in

re-creating a church, and regenerating a literature--and see who will count

the shipwrecks!'

Her hand's disdainful gesture completed the sally.

Manisty's face dismissed its shadow.

As she stood beside him, in the rosy light--so proudly confident--Eleanor

Burgoyne was very delightful to see and hear. Manisty, one of the subtlest

and most fastidious of observers, was abundantly conscious of it. Yet she

was not beautiful, except in the judgment of a few exceptional people, to

whom a certain kind of grace--very rare, and very complex in origin--is of

more importance than other things. The eyes were, indeed, beautiful; so was

the forehead, and the hair of a soft ashy brown folded and piled round it

in a most skilful simplicity. But the rest of the face was too long; and

its pallor, the singularly dark circles round the eyes, the great thinness

of the temples and cheeks, together with the emaciation of the whole

delicate frame, made a rather painful impression on a stranger. It was

a face of experience, a face of grief; timid, yet with many strange

capacities and suggestions both of vehemence and pride. It could still

tremble into youth and delight. But in general it held the world aloof.

Mrs. Burgoyne was not very far from thirty, and either physical weakness,

or the presence of some enemy within more destructive still, had emphasised

the loss of youth. At the same time she had still a voice, a hand, a

carriage that lovelier women had often envied, discerning in them those

subtleties of race and personality which are not to be rivalled for the

asking.

To-night she brought all her charm to bear upon her companion's

despondency, and succeeded as she had often succeeded before. She divined

that he needed flattery, and she gave it; that he must be supported and

endorsed, and she had soon pushed General Fenton out of sight behind a

cloud of witness of another sort.

Manisty's mood yielded; and in a short time he was again no less ready to

admire the sunset than she was.

'Heavens!' she said at last, holding out her watch.--'Just look at the

time--and Miss Foster!'

Manisty struck his hand against the railing.

'How is one to be civil about this visit! Nothing could be more

unfortunate. These last critical weeks--and each of us so dependent on

the other--Really it is the most monstrous folly on all our parts that we

should have brought this girl upon us.'

'Poor Miss Foster!' said Mrs. Burgoyne, raising her eyebrows. 'But of

course you won't be civil!--Aunt Pattie and I know that. When I think of

what I went through that first fortnight--'

'Eleanor!'

'You are the only man I ever knew that could sit silent through a whole

meal. By to-morrow Miss Foster will have added that experience to her

collection. Well--I shall be prepared with my consolations--there's the

carriage--and the bell!'

They fled indoors, escaping through the side entrances of the salon, before

the visitor could be shown in.

* * * * *

'Must I change my dress?'

The voice that asked the question trembled with agitation and fatigue. But

the girl who owned the voice stood up stiffly, looking at Miss Manisty with

a frowning, almost a threatening shyness.

'Well, my dear,' said Miss Manisty, hesitating. 'Are you not rather dusty?

We can easily keep dinner a quarter of an hour.'

She looked at the grey alpaca dress before her, in some perplexity.

'Oh, very well'--said the girl hurriedly.--'Of course I'll change.

Only'--and the voice fluttered again evidently against her will--'I'm

afraid I haven't anything very nice. I must get something in Rome. Mrs.

Lewinson advised me. This is my afternoon dress,--I've been wearing it in

Florence. But of course--I'll put on my other.--Oh! please don't send for a

maid. I'd rather unpack for myself--so much rather!'

The speaker flushed crimson, as she saw Miss Manisty's maid enter the

room in answer to her mistress's ring. She stood up indeed with her hand

grasping her trunk, as though defending it from an assailant.

The maid looked at her mistress. 'Miss Foster will ring, Benson, if she

wants you'--said Miss Manisty; and the black-robed elderly maid, breathing

decorous fashion and the ways of 'the best people,' turned, gave a swift

look at Miss Foster, and left the room.

'Are you sure, my dear? You know she would make you tidy in no time. She

arranges hair beautifully.'

'Oh quite--quite sure!--thank you,' said the girl with the same eagerness.

'I will be ready,--right away.'

Then, left to herself, Miss Foster hastily opened her box and took out some

of its contents. She unfolded one dress after another,--and looked at them

unhappily.

'Perhaps I ought to have let cousin Izza give me those things in Boston,'

she thought. 'Perhaps I was too proud. And that money of Uncle Ben's--it

might have been kinder--after all he wanted me to look nice'--

She sat ruefully on the ground beside her trunk, turning the things over,

in a misery of annoyance and mortification; half inclined to laugh too

as she remembered the seamstress in the small New England country town,

who had helped her own hands to manufacture them. 'Well, Miss Lucy, your

uncle's done real handsome by you. I guess he's set you up, and no mistake.

There's no meanness about him!'

And she saw the dress on the stand--the little blonde withered head of the

dressmaker--the spectacled eyes dwelling proudly on the masterpiece before

them.--

Alack! There rose up the memory of little Mrs. Lewinson at Florence--of her

gently pursed lips--of the looks that were meant to be kind, and were in

reality so critical.

No matter. The choice had to be made; and she chose at last a blue and

white check that seemed to have borne its travels better than the rest. It

had looked so fresh and striking in the window of the shop whence she had

bought it. 'And you know, Miss Lucy, you're so tall, you can stand them

chancy things'--her little friend had said to her, when _she_ had wondered

whether the check might not be too large.

And yet only with a passing wonder. She could not honestly say that her

dress had cost her much thought then or at any other time. She had been

content to be very simple, to admire other girls' cleverness. There had

been influences upon her own childhood, however, that had somehow separated

her from the girls around her, had made it difficult for her to think and

plan as they did.

She rose with the dress in her hands, and as she did so, she caught the

glory of the sunset through the open window.

She ran to look, all her senses flooded with the sudden beauty,--when she

heard a man's voice as it seemed close beside her. Looking to the left, she

distinguished a balcony, and a dark figure that had just emerged upon it.

Mr. Manisty--no doubt! She closed her window hurriedly, and began her

dressing, trying at the time to collect her thoughts on the subject of

these people whom she had come to visit.

Yet neither the talk of her Boston cousins, nor the gossip of the Lewinsons

at Florence had left any very clear impression. She remembered well her

first and only sight of Miss Manisty at Boston. The little spinster, so

much a lady, so kind, cheerful and agreeable, had left a very favourable

impression in America. Mr. Manisty had left an impression too--that was

certain--for people talked of him perpetually. Not many persons, however,

had liked him, it seemed. She could remember, as it were, a whole track

of resentments, hostilities, left behind. 'He cares nothing about us'--an

irate Boston lady had said in her hearing--but he will exploit us! He

despises us,--but he'll make plenty of speeches and articles out of

us--you'll see!'

As for Major Lewinson, the husband of Mr. Manisty's first cousin,--she had

been conscious all the time of only half believing what he said, of holding

out against it. He must be so different from Mr. Manisty--the little smart,

quick-tempered soldier--with his contempt for the undisciplined civilian

way of doing things. She did not mean to remember his remarks. For after

all, she had her own ideas of what Mr. Manisty would be like. She had

secretly formed her own opinion. He had been a man of letters and a

traveller before he entered politics. She remembered--nay, she would never

forget--a volume of letters from Palestine, written by him, which had

reached her through the free library of the little town near her home.

She who read slowly, but, when she admired, with a silent and worshipping

ardour, had read this book, had hidden it under her pillow, had been

haunted for days by its pliant sonorous sentences, by the colour, the

perfume, the melancholy of pages that seemed to her dreaming youth

marvellous, inimitable. There were descriptions of a dawn at Bethlehem--a

night wandering at Jerusalem--a reverie by the sea of Galilee--the very

thought of which made her shiver a little, so deeply had they touched her

young and pure imagination.

And then--people talked so angrily of his quarrel with the Government--and

his resigning. They said he had been foolish, arrogant, unwise. Perhaps.

But after all it had been to his own hurt--it must have been for principle.

So far the girl's secret instinct was all on his side.

Meanwhile, as she dressed, there floated through her mind fragments of what

she had been told as to his strange personal beauty; but these she only

entertained shyly and in passing. She had been brought up to think little

of such matters, or rather to avoid thinking of them.

She went through her toilette as neatly and rapidly as she could, her mind

all the time so full of speculation and a deep restrained excitement that

she ceased to trouble herself in the least about her gown. As for her hair,

she arranged it almost mechanically, caring only that its black masses

should be smooth and in order. She fastened at her throat a small turquoise

brooch that had been her mother's; she clasped the two little chain

bracelets that were the only ornaments of the kind she possessed, and then

without a single backward look towards the reflection in the glass, she

left her room--her heart beating fast with timidity and expectation.

* * * * *

'Oh! poor child--poor child!--what a frock!'

Such was the inward ejaculation of Mrs. Burgoyne, as the door of the salon

was thrown open by the Italian butler, and a very tall girl came abruptly

through, edging to one side as though she were trying to escape the

servant, and looking anxiously round the vast room.

Manisty also turned as the door opened. Miss Manisty caught his momentary

expression of wonder, as she herself hurried forward to meet the new-comer.

'You have been very quick, my dear, and I am sure you must be hungry.--This

is an old friend of ours--Mrs. Burgoyne--my nephew--Edward Manisty. He

knows all your Boston cousins, if not you. Edward, will you take Miss

Foster?--she's the stranger.'

Mrs. Burgoyne pressed the girl's hand with a friendly effusion. Beyond her

was a dark-haired man, who bowed in silence. Lucy Foster took his arm, and

he led her through a large intervening room, in which were many tables and

many books, to the dining-room.

On the way he muttered a few embarrassed words as to the weather and

the lateness of dinner, walking meanwhile so fast that she had to hurry

after him. 'Good heavens, why she is a perfect chess-board!' he thought

to himself, looking askance at her dress, in a sudden and passionate

dislike--'one could play draughts upon her. What has my Aunt been about?'

The girl looked round her in bewilderment as they sat down. What a strange

place! The salon in her momentary glance round it had seemed to her all

splendour. She had been dimly aware of pictures, fine hangings, luxurious

carpets. Here on the other hand all was rude and bare. The stained walls

were covered with a series of tattered daubs, that seemed to be meant

for family portraits--of the Malestrini family perhaps, to whom the

villa belonged? And between the portraits there were rough modern doors

everywhere of the commonest wood and manufacture which let in all the

draughts, and made the room not a room, but a passage. The uneven brick

floor was covered in the centre with some thin and torn matting; many of

the chairs ranged against the wall were broken; and the old lamp that swung

above the table gave hardly any light.

Miss Manisty watched her guest's face with a look of amusement.

'Well, what do you think of our dining-room, my dear? I wanted to clean it

and put it in order. But my nephew there wouldn't have a thing touched.'

She looked at Manisty, with a movement of the lips and head that seemed to

implore him to make some efforts.

Manisty frowned a little, lifted his great brow and looked, not at Miss

Foster, but at Mrs. Burgoyne--

'The room, as it happens, gives me more pleasure than any other in the

villa.'

Mrs. Burgoyne laughed.

'Because it's hideous?'

'If you like. I should only call it the natural, untouched thing.'

Then while his Aunt and Mrs. Burgoyne made mock of him, he fell silent

again, nervously crumbling his bread with a large wasteful hand. Lucy

Foster stole a look at him, at the strong curls of black hair piled above

the brow, the moody embarrassment of the eyes, the energy of the lips and

chin.

Then she turned to her companions. Suddenly the girl's clear brown skin

flushed rosily, and she abruptly took her eyes from Mrs. Burgoyne.

Miss Manisty, however--in despair of her nephew--was bent upon doing her

own duty. She asked all the proper questions about the girl's journey,

about the cousins at Florence, about her last letters from home. Miss

Foster answered quickly, a little breathlessly, as though each question

were an ordeal that had to be got through. And once or twice, in the course

of the conversation, she looked again at Mrs. Burgoyne, more lingeringly

each time. That lady wore a thin dress gleaming with jet. The long white

arms showed under the transparent stuff. The slender neck and delicate

bosom were bare,--too bare surely,--that was the trouble. To look at her

filled the girl's shrinking Puritan sense with discomfort. But what small

and graceful hands!--and how she used them!--how she turned her neck!--how

delicious her voice was! It made the new-comer think of some sweet plashing

stream in her own Vermont valleys. And then, every now and again, how

subtle and startling was the change of look!--the gaiety passing in a

moment, with the drooping of eye and mouth, into something sad and harsh,

like a cloud dropping round a goddess. In her elegance and self-possession

indeed, she seemed to the girl a kind of goddess--heathenishly divine,

because of that mixture of unseemliness, but still divine.

Several times Mrs. Burgoyne addressed her--with a gentle courtesy--and Miss

Foster answered. She was shy, but not at all awkward or conscious. Her

manner had the essential self-possession which is the birthright of the

American woman. But it suggested reserve, and a curious absence of any

young desire to make an effect.

As for Mrs. Burgoyne, long before dinner was over, she had divined a great

many things about the new-comer, and amongst them the girl's disapproval of

herself. 'After all'--she thought--'if she only knew it, she is a beauty.

What a trouble it must have been first to find, and then to make that

dress!--Ill luck!--And her hair! Who on earth taught her to drag it back

like that? If one could only loosen it, how beautiful it would be! What

is it? Is it Puritanism? Has she been brought up to go to meetings and sit

under a minister? Were her forbears married in drawing-rooms and under

trees? The Fates were certainly frolicking when they brought her here! How

am I to keep Edward in order?'

And suddenly, with a little signalling of eye and brow, she too conveyed to

Manisty, who was looking listlessly towards her, that he was behaving as

badly as even she could have expected. He made a little face that only she

saw, but he turned to Miss Foster and began to talk,--all the time adding

to the mountain of crumbs beside him, and scarcely waiting to listen to the

girl's answers.

'You came by Pisa?'

'Yes. Mrs. Lewinson found me an escort--'

'It was a mistake--' he said, hurrying his words like a schoolboy. 'You

should have come by Perugia and Spoleto. Do you know Spello?'

Miss Foster stared.

'Edward!' said Miss Manisty, 'how could she have heard of Spello? It is the

first time she has ever been in Italy.'

'No matter!' he said, and in a moment his moroseness was lit up, chased

away by the little pleasure of his own whim--'Some day Miss Foster must

hear of Spello. May I not be the first person to tell her that she should

see Spello?'

'Really, Edward!' cried Miss Manisty, looking at him in a mild

exasperation.

'But there was so much to see at Florence!' said Lucy Foster, wondering.

'No--pardon me!--there is nothing to be seen at Florence--or nothing that

one ought to wish to see--till the destroyers of the town have been hung in

their own new Piazza!'

'Oh yes!--that is a real disfigurement!' said the girl eagerly. 'And

yet--can't one understand?--they must use their towns for themselves. They

can't always be thinking of them as museums--as we do.'

'The argument would be good if the towns were theirs,' he said, flashing

round upon her. 'One can stand a great deal from lawful owners.'

Miss Foster looked in bewilderment at Mrs. Burgoyne. That lady laughed and

bent across the table.

'Let me warn you, Miss Foster, this gentleman here must be taken with a

grain of salt when he talks about poor Italy--and the Italians.'

'But I thought'--said Lucy Foster, staring at her host--

'You thought he was writing a book on Italy? That doesn't matter. It's the

new Italy of course that he hates--the poor King and Queen--the Government

and the officials.'

'He wants the old times back?'--said Miss Foster, wondering--'when the

priests tyrannised over everybody? when the Italians had no country--and no

unity?'

She spoke slowly, at last looking her host in the face. Her frown of

nervousness had disappeared. Manisty laughed.

'Pio Nono pulled down nothing--not a brick--or scarcely. And it is a most

excellent thing, Miss Foster, to be tyrannised over by priests.'

His great eyes shone--one might even say, glared upon her. His manner was

not agreeable; and Miss Foster coloured.

'I don't think so'--she said, and then was too shy to say any more.

'Oh, but you will think so,'--he said, obstinately--'only you must stay

long enough in the country. What people are pleased to call Papal tyranny

puts a few people in prison--and tells them what books to read. Well!--what

matter? Who knows what books they ought to read?'

'But all their long struggle!--and their heroes! They had to make

themselves a nation--'

The words stumbled on the girl's tongue, but her effort, the hot feeling in

her young face became her.--Miss Manisty thought to herself, 'Oh, we shall

dress, and improve her--We shall see!'--

'One has first to settle whether it was worth while. What does a new nation

matter? Theirs, anyway, was made too quick,' said Manisty, rising in answer

to his aunt's signal.

'But liberty matters!' said the girl. She stood an instant with her hand on

the back of her chair, unconsciously defiant.

'Ah! Liberty!' said Manisty--'Liberty!' He lifted his shoulders

contemptuously.

Then backing to the wall, he made room for her to pass. The girl felt

almost as though she had been struck. She moved hurriedly, appealingly

towards Miss Manisty, who took her arm kindly as they left the room.

'Don't let my nephew frighten you, my dear'--she said--'He never thinks

like anybody else.'

'I read so much at Florence--and on the journey'--said Lucy, while her hand

trembled in Miss Manisty's--'Mrs. Browning--Mazzini--many things. I could

not put that time out of my head!'