“I hope you haven’t lost a great deal of time, as it is, Mrs. Amsden,” said Colville. “Of course I should have had my eyes open if I had known you were going by.”
“Oh, don’t apologise!” cried the old thing, with ready enjoyment of his tone.
“I don’t apologise for not being recognisable; I apologise for being visible,” said Colville, with some shapeless impression that he ought to excuse his continued presence in Florence to Imogene, but keeping his eyes upon Mrs. Amsden, to whom what he said could not be intelligible. “I ought to be in Turin today.”
“In Turin! Are you going away from Florence?”
“I’m going home.”
“Why, did you know that?” asked the old lady of Imogene, who slightly nodded, and then of Effie, who also assented. “Really, the silence of the Bowen family in regard to the affairs of others is extraordinary. There never was a family more eminently qualified to live in Florence. I dare say that if I saw a little more of them, I might hope to reach the years of discretion myself some day. Why are you going away? (You see I haven’t reached them yet!) Are you tired of Florence already?”
“No,” said Colville passively; “Florence is tired of me.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Yes; there’s no mistaking one of her sex on such a point.”
Mrs. Amsden laughed. “Ah, a great many people mistake us, both ways. And you’re really going back to America. What in the world for?”
“I haven’t the least idea.”
“Is America fonder of you than Florence?”
“She’s never told her love. I suspect it’s merely that she’s more used to me.”
They were walking, without any volition of his, down the slope of the broad avenue to the fountain, where he had already been.
“Is your mother well?” he asked of the little girl. It seemed to him that he had better not speak to Imogene, who still kept that little distance from the rest, and get away as soon as he decently could.
“She has a headache,” said Effie.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” returned Colville.
“Yes, she deputed me to take her young people out for an airing,” said Mrs. Amsden; “and Miss Graham decided us for the Boboli, where she hadn’t been yet. I’ve done what I could to make the place attractive. But what is an old woman to do for a girl in a garden? We ought to have brought some other young people—some of the Inglehart boys. But we’re respectable, we Americans abroad; we’re decorous, above all things; and I don’t know about meeting you here, Mr. Colville. It has a very bad appearance. Are you sure that you didn’t know I was to go by here at exactly half-past four?”
“I was living from breath to breath in the expectation of seeing you. You must have noticed how eagerly I was looking out for you.”
“Yes, and with a single red anemone in your hand, so that I should know you without being obliged to put on my spectacles.”
“You divine everything, Mrs. Amsden,” he said, giving her the flower.
“I shall make my brags to Mrs. Bowen when I see her,” said the old lady. “How far into the country did you walk for this?”
“As far as the meadow yonder.”
They had got down to the sheet of water from which the seahorses of the fountain sprang, and the old lady sank upon a bench near it. Colville held out his hand toward Effie. “I saw a lot of violets over there in the grass.”
“Did you?” She put her hand eagerly into his, and they strolled off together. After a first motion to accompany them, Imogene sat down beside Mrs. Amsden, answering quietly the talk of the old lady, and seeming in nowise concerned about the expedition for violets. Except for a dull first glance, she did not look that way. Colville stood in the border of the grass, and the child ran quickly hither and thither in it, stooping from time to time upon the flowers. Then she came out to where he stood, and showed her bunch of violets, looking up into the face which he bent upon her, while he trifled with his cane. He had a very fatherly air with her.
“I think I’ll go and see what they’ve found,” said Imogene irrelevantly, to a remark of Mrs. Amsden’s about the expensiveness of Madame Bossi’s bonnets.
“Well,” said the old lady. Imogene started, and the little girl ran to meet her. She detained Effie with her admiration of the violets till Colville lounged reluctantly up. “Go and show them to Mrs. Amsden,” she said, giving back the violets, which she had been smelling. The child ran on. “Mr. Colville, I want to speak with you.”
“Yes,” said Colville helplessly.
“Why are you going away?”
“Why? Oh, I’ve accomplished the objects—or no-objects—I came for,” he said, with dreary triviality, “and I must hurry away to other fields of activity.” He kept his eyes on her face, which he saw full of a passionate intensity, working to some sort of overflow.
“That is not true, and you needn’t say it to spare me. You are going away because Mrs. Bowen said something to you about me.”
“Not quite that,” returned Colville gently.
“No; it was something that she said to me about you. But it’s the same thing. It makes no difference. I ask you not to go for that.”
“Do you know what you are saying, Imogene?”
“Yes.”
Colville waited a long moment. “Then, I thank you, you dear girl, and I am going tomorrow, all the same. But I shan’t forget this; whatever my life is to be, this will make it less unworthy and less unhappy. If it could buy anything to give you joy, to add some little grace to the good that must come to you, I would give it. Some day you’ll meet the young fellow whom you’re to make immortal, and you must tell him of an old fellow who knew you afar off, and understood how to worship you for an angel of pity and unselfishness. Ah, I hope he’ll understand,
