“All these things?”
“Yes, everything you’re invited to after this. It’s not merely for a blind as regards ourselves now, but if they see that you’re very fond of all sorts of gaieties, they will see that you are—they will understand—”
There was no need for her to complete the sentence. Colville rose. “Come, come, my dear child,” he said, “why don’t you end all this at once? I don’t blame you. Heaven knows I blame no one but myself! I ought to have the strength to break away from this mistake, but I haven’t. I couldn’t bear to see you suffer from pain that I should give you even for your good. But do it yourself, Imogene, and for pity’s sake don’t forbear from any notion of sparing me. I have no wish except for your happiness, and now I tell you clearly that no appearance we can put on before the world will deceive the world. At the end of all our trouble I shall still be forty—”
She sprang to him and put her hand over his mouth. “I know what you’re going to say, and I won’t let you say it, for you’ve promised over and over again not to speak of that any more. Oh, do you think I care for the world, or what it will think or say?”
“Yes, very much.”
“That shows how little you understand me. It’s because I wish to defy the world—”
“Imogene! Be as honest with yourself as you are with me.”
“I am honest.”
“Look me in the eyes, then.”
She did so for an instant, and then hid her face on his shoulder.
“You silly girl,” he said. “What is it you really do wish?”
“I wish there was no one in the world but you and me.”
“Ah, you’d find it very crowded at times,” said Colville sadly. “Well, well,” he added, “I’ll go to your fandangoes, because you want me to go.”
“That’s all I wished you to say,” she replied, lifting her head, and looking him radiantly in the face. “I don’t want you to go at all! I only want you to promise that you’ll come here every night that you’re invited out, and read to Mrs. Bowen and me.”
“Oh, I can’t do that,” said Colville; “I’m too fond of society. For example, I’ve been invited to an Egyptian fancy ball, and I couldn’t think of giving that up.”
“Oh, how delightful you are! They couldn’t any of them talk like you.”
He had learned to follow the processes of her thought now. “Perhaps they can when they come to my age.”
“There!” she exclaimed, putting her hand on his mouth again, to remind him of another broken promise. “Why can’t you give up the Egyptian ball?”
“Because I expect to meet a young lady there—a very beautiful young lady.”
“But how shall you know her if she’s disguised?”
“Why, I shall be disguised too, you know.”
“Oh, what delicious nonsense you do talk! Sit down here and tell me what you are going to wear.”
She tried to pull him back to the sofa. “What character shall you go in?”
“No, no,” he said, resisting the gentle traction. “I can’t; I have urgent business downtown.”
“Oh! Business in Florence!”
“Well, if I stayed, I should tell you what disguise I’m going to the ball in.”
“I knew it was that. What do you think would be a good character for me?”
“I don’t know. The serpent of old Nile would be pretty good for you.”
“Oh, I know you don’t think it!” she cried fondly. She had now let him take her hand, and he stood holding it at arm’s-length. Effie Bowen came into the room. “Goodbye,” said Imogene, with an instant assumption of society manner.
“Goodbye,” said Colville, and went out.
“Oh, Mr. Colville!” she called, before he got to the outer door.
“Yes,” he said, starting back.
She met him midway of the dim corridor. “Only to—” She put her arms about his neck and sweetly kissed him.
Colville went out into the sunlight feeling like some strange, newly invented kind of scoundrel—a rascal of such recent origin and introduction that he had not yet had time to classify himself and ascertain the exact degree of his turpitude. The task employed his thoughts all that day, and kept him vibrating between an instinctive conviction of monstrous wickedness and a logical and well-reasoned perception that he had all the facts and materials for a perfectly good conscience. He was the betrothed lover of this poor child, whose affection he could not check without a degree of brutality for which only a better man would have the courage. When he thought of perhaps refusing her caresses, he imagined the shock it would give her, and the look of grief and mystification that would come into her eyes, and he found himself incapable of that cruel rectitude. He knew that these were the impulses of a white and loving soul; but at the end of all his argument they remained a terror to him, so that he lacked nothing but the will to fly from Florence and shun her altogether till she had heard from her family. This, he recalled, with bitter self-reproach was what had been his first inspiration; he had spoken of it to Mrs. Bowen, and it had still everything in its favour except that it was impossible.
Imogene returned to the salotto, where the little girl was standing with her face to the window, drearily looking out; her back expressed an inner desolation which revealed itself in her eyes when Imogene caught her head between her hands, and tilted up her face to kiss it.
“What is the matter, Effie?” she demanded gaily.
“Nothing.”
“Oh yes, there is.”
“Nothing that you will care for. As long as he’s pleasant to you, you don’t care what he does to me.”
“What has he done to you?”
“He didn’t take the slightest notice of me when I came into the room. He didn’t
