'And if he asks again?'
'I shall marry no one just now.'
'Roderick,' said Rowland, 'has great hopes.'
'Does he know of my rupture with the prince?'
'He is making a great holiday of it.'
Christina pulled her poodle towards her and began to smooth his silky fleece. 'I like him very much,' she repeated; 'much more than I used to. Since you told me all that about him at Saint Cecilia's, I have felt a great friendship for him. There 's something very fine about him; he 's not afraid of anything. He is not afraid of failure; he is not afraid of ruin or death.'
'Poor fellow!' said Rowland, bitterly; 'he is fatally picturesque.'
'Picturesque, yes; that 's what he is. I am very sorry for him.'
'Your mother told me just now that you had said that you did n't care a straw for him.'
'Very likely! I meant as a lover. One does n't want a lover one pities, and one does n't want—of all things in the world—a picturesque husband! I should like Mr. Hudson as something else. I wish he were my brother, so that he could never talk to me of marriage. Then I could adore him. I would nurse him, I would wait on him and save him all disagreeable rubs and shocks. I am much stronger than he, and I would stand between him and the world. Indeed, with Mr. Hudson for my brother, I should be willing to live and die an old maid!'
'Have you ever told him all this?'
'I suppose so; I 've told him five hundred things! If it would please you, I will tell him again.'
'Oh, Heaven forbid!' cried poor Rowland, with a groan.
He was lingering there, weighing his sympathy against his irritation, and feeling it sink in the scale, when the curtain of a distant doorway was lifted and Mrs. Light passed across the room. She stopped half-way, and gave the young persons a flushed and menacing look. It found apparently little to reassure her, and she moved away with a passionate toss of her drapery. Rowland thought with horror of the sinister compulsion to which the young girl was to be subjected. In this ethereal flight of hers there was a certain painful effort and tension of wing; but it was none the less piteous to imagine her being rudely jerked down to the base earth she was doing her adventurous utmost to spurn. She would need all her magnanimity for her own trial, and it seemed gross to make further demands upon it on Roderick's behalf.
Rowland took up his hat. 'You asked a while ago if I had come to help you,' he said. 'If I knew how I might help you, I should be particularly glad.'
She stood silent a moment, reflecting. Then at last, looking up, 'You remember,' she said, 'your promising me six months ago to tell me what you finally thought of me? I should like you to tell me now.'
He could hardly help smiling. Madame Grandoni had insisted on the fact that Christina was an actress, though a sincere one; and this little speech seemed a glimpse of the cloven foot. She had played her great scene, she had made her point, and now she had her eye at the hole in the curtain and she was watching the house! But she blushed as she perceived his smile, and her blush, which was beautiful, made her fault venial.
'You are an excellent girl!' he said, in a particular tone, and gave her his hand in farewell.
There was a great chain of rooms in Mrs. Light's apartment, the pride and joy of the hostess on festal evenings, through which the departing visitor passed before reaching the door. In one of the first of these Rowland found himself waylaid and arrested by the distracted lady herself.
'Well, well?' she cried, seizing his arm. 'Has she listened to you—have you moved her?'
'In Heaven's name, dear madame,' Rowland begged, 'leave the poor girl alone! She is behaving very well!'
'Behaving very well? Is that all you have to tell me? I don't believe you said a proper word to her. You are conspiring together to kill me!'
Rowland tried to soothe her, to remonstrate, to persuade her that it was equally cruel and unwise to try to force matters. But she answered him only with harsh lamentations and imprecations, and ended by telling him that her daughter was her property, not his, and that his interference was most insolent and most scandalous. Her disappointment seemed really to have crazed her, and his only possible rejoinder was to take a summary departure.
A moment later he came upon the Cavaliere, who was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, so buried in thought that Rowland had to call him before he roused himself. Giacosa looked at him a moment keenly, and then gave a shake of the head, interrogatively.
Rowland gave a shake negative, to which the Cavaliere responded by a long, melancholy sigh. 'But her mother is determined to force matters,' said Rowland.
'It seems that it must be!'
'Do you consider that it must be?'
'I don't differ with Mrs. Light!'
'It will be a great cruelty!'
The Cavaliere gave a tragic shrug. 'Eh! it is n't an easy world.'
'You should do nothing to make it harder, then.'
'What will you have? It 's a magnificent marriage.'
'You disappoint me, Cavaliere,' said Rowland, solemnly. 'I imagined you appreciated the great elevation of Miss Light's attitude. She does n't love the prince; she has let the matter stand or fall by that.'
The old man grasped him by the hand and stood a moment with averted eyes. At last, looking at him, he held
