AN ANGRY COLLOQUY
It was with passionate eagerness Nina set off in search of Kate. Why she
should have felt herself wronged, outraged, insulted even, is not so easy
to say, nor shall I attempt any analysis of the complex web of sentiments
which, so to say, spread itself over her faculties. The man who had so
wounded her self-love had been at her feet, he had followed her in her
walks, hung over the piano as she sang--shown by a thousand signs that sort
of devotion by which men intimate that their lives have but one solace, one
ecstasy, one joy. By what treachery had he been moved to all this, if he
really loved another? That he was simply amusing himself with the sort
of flirtation she herself could take up as a mere pastime was not to be
believed. That the worshipper should be insincere in his worship was too
dreadful to think of. And yet it was to this very man she had once turned
to avenge herself on Walpole’s treatment of her; she had even said, ‘Could
you not make a quarrel with him?’ Now, no woman of foreign breeding puts
such a question without the perfect consciousness that, in accepting a
man’s championship, she has virtually admitted his devotion. Her own levity
of character, the thoughtless indifference with which she would sport with
any man’s affections, so far from inducing her to palliate such caprices,
made her more severe and unforgiving. ‘How shall I punish him for this? How
shall I make him remember whom it is he has insulted?’ repeated she over
and over to herself as she went.
The servants passed her on the stairs with trunks and luggage of various
kinds; but she was too much engrossed with her own thoughts to notice them.
Suddenly the words, ‘Mr. Walpole’s room,’ caught her ear, and she asked,
‘Has any one come?’
Yes, two gentlemen had just arrived. A third was to come that night, and
Miss O’Shea might be expected at any moment.
‘Where was Miss Kate?’ she inquired.
‘In her own room at the top of the house.’
Thither she hastened at once.
‘Be a dear good girl,’ cried Kate as Nina entered, ‘and help me in my many
embarrassments. Here are a flood of visitors all coming unexpectedly. Major
Lockwood and Mr. Walpole have come. Miss Betty will be here for dinner, and
Mr. Atlee, whom we all believed to be in Asia, may arrive to-night. I shall
be able to feed them; but how to lodge them with any pretension to comfort
is more than I can see.’
‘I am in little humour to aid any one. I have my own troubles--worse ones,
perhaps, than playing hostess to disconsolate travellers.’
‘And what are your troubles, dear Nina?’
‘I have half a mind not to tell you. You ask me with that supercilious air
that seems to say, “How can a creature like you be of interest enough to
any one or anything to have a difficulty?”’
‘I force no confidences,’ said the other coldly.
‘For that reason you shall have them--at least this one. What will you
say when I tell you that young O’Shea has made me a declaration, a formal
declaration of love?’
‘I should say that you need not speak of it as an insult or an offence.’
‘Indeed! and if so, you would say what was perfectly wrong. It was both
insult and offence--yes, both. Do you know that the man mistook me for
_you_, and called me _Kate_?’
‘How could this be possible?’
‘In a darkened room, with a sick man slowly rallying from a long attack
of stupor; nothing of me to be seen but my hand, which he devoured with
kisses--raptures, indeed, Kate, of which I had no conception till I
experienced them by counterfeit!’
‘Oh! Nina, this is not fair!’
‘It is true, child. The man caught my hand and declared he would never quit
it till I promised it should be his own. Nor was he content with this; but,
anticipating his right to be lord and master, he bade you to beware of
_me_! “Beware of that Greek girl!” were his words--words strengthened by
what he said of my character and my temperament. I shall spare you, and I
shall spare myself, his acute comments on the nature he dreaded to see in
companionship with his wife. I have had good training in learning these
unbiassed judgments--my early life abounded in such experiences--but this
young gentleman’s cautions were candour itself.’
‘I am sincerely sorry for what has pained you.’
‘I did not say it was this boy’s foolish words had wounded me so acutely. I
could bear sterner critics than he is--his very blundering misconception of
me would always plead his pardon. How could he, or how could they with whom
he lived and talked, and smoked and swaggered, know of me, or such as me?
What could there be in the monotonous vulgarity of their tiresome lives
that should teach them what we are, or what we wish to be? By what
presumption did he dare to condemn all that he could not understand?’
‘You are angry, Nina; and I will not say without some cause.’
‘What ineffable generosity! You can really constrain yourself to believe
that I have been insulted!’
‘I should not say insulted.’
‘You cannot be an honest judge in such a cause. Every outrage offered to
_me_ was an act of homage to _yourself_! If you but knew how I burned to
tell him who it was whose hand he held in his, and to whose ears he had
poured out his raptures! To tell him, too, how the Greek girl would have
resented his presumption, had he but dared to indulge it! One of the
women-servants, it would seem, was a witness to this boy’s declaration.
I think it was Mary was in the room, I do not know for how long, but she
announced her presence by asking some question about candles. In fact, I
shall have become a servants’-hall scandal by this time.’
‘There need not be any fear of that, Nina: there are no bad tongues amongst
our people.’
‘I know all that. I know we live amidst human perfectabilities--all of
Irish manufacture, and warranted to be genuine.’
‘I would hope that some of your impressions of Ireland are not
unfavourable?’
‘I scarcely know. I suppose you understand each other, and are tolerant
about capricious moods and ways, which, to strangers, might seem to have a
deeper significance. I believe you are not as hasty, or as violent, or
as rash as you seem, and I am sure you are not as impulsive in your
generosity, or as headlong in your affections. Not exactly that you mean to
be false, but you are hypocrites to yourselves.’
‘A very flattering picture of us.’
‘I do not mean to flatter you; and it is to this end I say, you are
Italians without the subtlety of the Italian, and Greeks without their
genius.--You need not curtsy so profoundly.--I could say worse than this,
Kate, if I were minded to do so.’
‘Pray do not be so minded, then. Pray remember that, even when you wound
me, I cannot return the thrust.’
‘I know what you mean,’ cried Nina rapidly. ‘You are veritable Arabs in
your estimate of hospitality, and he who has eaten your salt is sacred.’
‘You remind me of what I had nigh forgotten, Nina--of our coming guests.’
‘Do you know why Walpole and his friend are coming?’
‘They are already come, Nina--they are out walking with papa; but what has
brought them here I cannot guess, and, since I have heard your description
of Ireland, I cannot imagine.’
‘Nor can I,’ said she indolently, and moved away.