IV

Miss Graham did, indeed, somehow diminish in the nearer perspective. She

ceased to be overwhelming. When Colville lifted his eyes from bowing

before her he perceived that she--was neither so very tall nor so very

large, but possessed merely a generous amplitude of womanhood. But she

was even more beautiful, with a sweet and youthful radiance of look that

was very winning. If she had ceased to be the goddess she looked across

the length of the _salon_, she had gained much by becoming an extremely

lovely young girl; and her teeth, when she spoke, showed a fascinating

little irregularity that gave her the last charm.

Mrs. Bowen glided away with the young clergyman, but Effie remained at

Miss Graham's side, and seemed to have hold of the left hand which the

girl let hang carelessly behind her in the volume of her robe. The

child's face expressed an adoration of Miss Graham far beyond her

allegiance to her mother.

"I began to doubt whether Mrs. Bowen was going to bring you at all," she

said frankly, with an innocent, nervous laugh, which made favour for her

with Colville. "She promised it early in the evening."

"She has used me much worse, Miss Graham," said Colville. "She has kept

me waiting from the beginning of time. So that I have grown grey on my

way up to you," he added, by an inspiration. "I was a comparatively

young man when Mrs. Bowen first told me she was going to introduce me."

"Oh, how _good_!" said Miss Graham joyously. And her companion, after a

moment's hesitation, permitted herself a polite little titter. She had

made a discovery; she had discovered that Mr. Colville was droll.

"I'm very glad you like it," he said, with a gravity that did not

deceive them.

"Oh yes," sighed Miss Graham, with generous ardour. "Who but an American

could say just such things? There's the loveliest old lady here in

Florence, who's lived here thirty years, and she's always going back and

never getting back, and she's so homesick she doesn't know what to do,

and she always says that Americans may not be _better_ than other

people, but they are _different_."

"That's very pretty. They're different in everything but thinking

themselves better. Their native modesty prevents that."

"I don't exactly know what you mean," said Miss Graham, after a little

hesitation.

"Well," returned Colville, "I haven't thought it out very clearly myself

yet. I may mean that the Americans differ from other people in not

thinking well of themselves, or they may differ from them in not

thinking well enough. But what I said had a very epigrammatic sound, and

I prefer not to investigate it too closely."

This made Miss Graham and Miss Effie both cry out "Oh!" in delighted

doubt of his intention. They both insensibly drifted a little nearer to

him.

"There was a French lady said to me at the _table-d'hote_ this evening

that she knew I was an American, because the Americans always strike the

key of personality." He practised these economies of material in

conversation quite recklessly, and often made the same incident or

suggestion do duty round a whole company.

"Ah, I don't believe that," said Miss Graham.

"Believe what?"

"That the Americans always talk about themselves."

"I'm not sure she meant that. You never can tell what a person means by

what he says--or _she_."

"How shocking!".

"Perhaps the French lady meant that we always talk about other people.

That's in the key of personality too."

"But I don't believe we do," said Miss Graham. "At any rate, _she_ was

talking about _us_, then."

"Oh, she accounted for that by saying there was a large American colony

in Paris, who had corrupted the French, and taught them our pernicious

habit of introspection."

"Do you think we're very introspective?"

"Do you?"

"I know I'm not. I hardly ever think about myself at all. At any rate,

not till it's too late. That's the great trouble. I wish I could. But

I'm always studying other people. They're so much more interesting."

"Perhaps if you knew yourself better you wouldn't think so," suggested

Colville.

"Yes, I know they are. I don't think any young person can be

interesting."

"Then what becomes of all the novels? They're full of young persons."

"They're ridiculous. If I were going to write a novel, I should take an

old person for a hero--thirty-five or forty." She looked at Colville,

and blushing a little, hastened to add, "I don't believe that they begin

to be interesting much before that time. Such flat things as young men

are always saying! Don't you remember that passage somewhere in Heine's

_Pictures of Travel_, where he sees the hand of a lady coming out from

under her mantle, when she's confessing in a church, and he knows that

it's the hand of a young person who has enjoyed nothing and suffered

nothing, it's so smooth and flower-like? After I read that I hated the

look of my hands--I was only sixteen, and it seemed as if I had had no

more experience than a child. Oh, I like people to go _through_

something. Don't you?"

"Well, yes, I suppose I do. Other people."

"No; but don't you like it for yourself?"

"I can't tell; I haven't been through anything worth speaking of yet."

Miss Graham looked at him dubiously, but pursued with ardour: "Why, just

getting back to Florence, after not having been here for so long--I

should think it would be so romantic. Oh dear! I wish I were here for

the second time."

"I'm afraid you wouldn't like it so well," said Colville. "I wish I were

here for the first time. There's nothing like the first time in

everything."

"Do you really think so?"

"Well, there's nothing like the first time in Florence."

"Oh, I can't imagine it. I should think that recalling the old emotions

would be perfectly fascinating."

"Yes, if they'd come when you do call them. But they're as

contrary-minded as spirits from the vasty deep. I've been shouting

around here for my old emotions all day, and I haven't had a responsive

squeak."

"Oh!" cried Miss Graham, staring full-eyed at him. "How delightful!"

Effie Bowen turned away her pretty little head and laughed, as if it

might not be quite kind to laugh at a person's joke to his face.

Stimulated by their appreciation, Colville went on with more nonsense.

"No; the only way to get at your old emotions in regard to Florence is

to borrow them from somebody who's having them fresh. What do _you_

think about Florence, Miss Graham?"

"I? I've been here two months."

"Then it's too late?"

"No, I don't know that it is. I keep feeling the strangeness all the

time. But I can't tell you. It's very different from Buffalo, I can

assure you."

"Buffalo? I can imagine the difference. And it's not altogether to the

disadvantage of Buffalo."

"Oh, have you been there?" asked Miss Graham, with a touching little

eagerness. "Do you know anybody in Buffalo?"

"Some of the newspaper men; and I pass through there once a year on my

way to New York--or used to. It's a lively place."

"Yes, it is," sighed Miss Graham fondly.

"Do the girls of Buffalo still come out at night and dance by the light

of the moon?"

"What!"

"Ah, I see," said Colville, peering at her under his thoughtfully

knitted brows, "you do belong to another era. You don't remember the old

negro minstrel song."

"No," said Miss Graham. "I can only remember the end of the war."

"How divinely young!" said Colville. "Well," he added, "I wish that

French lady could have overheard us, Miss Graham. I think she would have

changed her mind about Americans striking the note of personality in

their talk."

"Oh!" exclaimed the girl reproachfully, after a moment of swift

reflection and recognition, "I don't see how you could let me do it! You

don't suppose that I should have talked so with every one? It was

because you were another American, and such an old friend of Mrs.

Bowen's."

"That is what I shall certainly tell the French lady if she attacks me

about it," said Colville. He glanced carelessly toward the end of the

room, and saw the young clergyman taking leave of Mrs. Bowen; all the

rest of the company were gone. "Bless me!" he said, "I must be going."

Mrs. Bowen had so swiftly advanced upon him that she caught the last

words. "Why?" she asked.

"Because it's to-morrow, I suspect, and the invitation was for one day

only."

"It was a season ticket," said Mrs. Bowen, with gay hospitality, "and it

isn't to-morrow for half an hour yet. I can't think of letting you go.

Come up to the fire, all, and let's sit down by it. It's at its very

best."

Effie looked a pretty surprise and a pleasure in this girlish burst from

her mother, whose habitual serenity made it more striking in contrast,

and she forsook Miss Graham's hand and ran forward and disposed the

easy-chairs comfortably about the hearth.

Colville and Mrs. Bowen suddenly found themselves upon those terms which

often succeed a long separation with people who have felt kindly toward

each other at a former meeting and have parted friends: they were much

more intimate than they had supposed themselves to be, or had really any

reason for being.

"Which one of your guests do you wish me to offer up, Mrs. Bowen?" he

asked, from the hollow of the arm-chair, not too low, which he had sunk

into. With Mrs. Bowen in a higher chair at his right hand, and Miss

Graham intent upon him from the sofa on his left, a sense of delicious

satisfaction filled him from head to foot. "There isn't one I would

spare if you said the word."

"And there isn't one I want destroyed, I'm sorry to say," answered Mrs.

Bowen. "Don't you think they were all very agreeable?"

"Yes, yes; agreeable enough--agreeable enough, I suppose. But they

stayed too long. When I think we might have been sitting here for the

last half-hour, if they'd only gone sooner, I find it pretty hard to

forgive them."

Mrs. Bowen and Miss Graham exchanged glances above his head--a glance

which demanded, "Didn't I tell you?" for a glance that answered, "Oh, he

_is_!" Effie Bowen's eyes widened; she kept them fastened upon Colville

in silent worship.

He asked who were certain of the company that he had noticed, and Mrs.

Bowen let him make a little fun of them: the fun was very good-natured.

He repeated what the German had said about the worldly ambition of

American girls; but she would not allow him so great latitude in this.

She said they were no worldlier than other girls. Of course, they were

fond of society, and some of them got a little spoiled. But they were in

no danger of becoming too conventional.

Colville did not insist. "I missed the military to-night, Mrs. Bowen,"

he said. "I thought one couldn't get through an evening in Florence

without officers?"

"We have them when there is dancing," returned Mrs. Bowen.

"Yes, but they don't know anything but dancing," Miss Graham broke in.

"I like some one who can talk something besides compliments."

"You are very peculiar, you know, Imogene," urged Mrs. Bowen gently. "I

don't think our young men at home do much better in conversation, if you

come to that, though."

"Oh, _young_ men, yes! They're the same everywhere. But here, even when

they're away along in the thirties, they think that girls can only enjoy

flattery. _I_ should like a gentleman to talk to me without a single

word or look to show that he thought I was good-looking."

"Ah, how could he be?" Colville insinuated, and the young girl coloured.

"I mean, if I were pretty. This everlasting adulation is insulting."

"Mr. Morton doesn't flatter," said Mrs. Bowen thoughtfully, turning the

feather screen she held at her face, now edgewise, now flatwise, toward

Colville.

"Oh no," owned Miss Graham. "He's a clergyman."

Mrs. Bowen addressed herself to Colville. "You must go to hear him some

day. He's very interesting, if you don't mind his being rather Low

Church."

Colville was going to pretend to an advanced degree of ritualism; but it

occurred to him that it might be a serious matter to Mrs. Bowen, and he

asked instead who was the Rev. Mr. Waters.

"Oh, isn't he lovely?" cried Miss Graham. "There, Mrs. Bowen! Mr.

Waters's manner is what I call _truly_ complimentary. He always talks to

you as if he expected you to be interested in serious matters, and as if

you were his intellectual equal. And he's so _happy_ here in Florence!

He gives you the impression of feeling every breath he breathes here a

privilege. You ought to hear him talk about Savonarola, Mr. Colville."

"Well," said Colville, "I've heard a great many people talk about

Savonarola, and I'm rather glad he talked to me about American girls."

"American girls!" uttered Miss Graham, in a little scream. "Did Mr.

Waters talk to you about _girls_?"

"Yes. Why not? He was probably in love with one once."

"Mr. Waters?" cried the girl. "What nonsense!"

"Well, then, with some old lady. Would you like that better?"

Miss Graham looked at Mrs. Bowen for permission, as it seemed, and then

laughed, but did not attempt any reply to Colville.

"You find even that incredible of such pyramidal antiquity," he resumed.

"Well, it _is_ hard to believe. I told him what that German said, and we

agreed beautifully about another type of American girl which we said we

preferred."

"Oh! What could it be?" demanded Miss Graham.

"Ah, it wouldn't be so easy to say right off-hand," answered Colville

indolently.

Mrs. Bowen put her hand under the elbow of the arm holding her screen.

"I don't believe I should agree with you so well," she said, apparently

with a sort of didactic intention.

They entered into a discussion which is always fruitful with

Americans--the discussion of American girlhood, and Colville contended

for the old national ideal of girlish liberty as wide as the continent,

as fast as the Mississippi. Mrs. Bowen withstood him with delicate

firmness. "Oh," he said, "you're Europeanised."

"I certainly prefer the European plan of bringing up girls," she replied

steadfastly. "I shouldn't think of letting a daughter of mine have the

freedom I had."

"Well, perhaps it will come right in the next generation, then; she will

let her daughter have the freedom she hadn't."

"Not if I'm alive to prevent it," cried Mrs. Bowen.