“Oh, of course,” interrupted Colville hastily. Every touch of this comforter’s hand had been a sting; and he parted with him in that feeling of utter friendlessness involving a man who has taken counsel upon the confession of half his trouble.
Something in Mrs. Bowen’s manner when he met her next made him think that perhaps Imogene had been telling her of the sympathy he had expressed for her ill-health. It was in the evening, and Imogene and Mr. Morton were looking over a copy of The Marble Faun, which he had illustrated with photographs at Rome. Imogene asked Colville to look at it too, but he said he would examine it later; he had his opinion of people who illustrated The Marble Faun with photographs; it surprised him that she seemed to find something novel and brilliant in the idea.
Effie Bowen looked round where she was kneeling on a chair beside the couple with the book, and seeing Colville wandering neglectedly about before he placed himself, she jumped down and ran and caught his hand.
“Well, what now?” he asked, with a dim smile, as she began to pull him toward the sofa. When he should be expelled from Palazzo Pinti he would really miss the worship of that little thing. He knew that her impulse had been to console him for his exclusion from the pleasures that Imogene and Mr. Morton were enjoying.
“Nothing. Just talk,” she said, making him fast in a corner of the sofa by crouching tight against him.
“What about? About which is the pleasantest season?”
“Oh no; we’ve talked about that so often. Besides, of course you’d say spring, now that it’s coming on so nicely.”
“Do you think I’m so changeable as that? Haven’t I always said winter when this question of the seasons was up? And I say it now. Shan’t you be awfully sorry when you can’t have a pleasant little fire on the hearth like this any more?”
“Yes; I know. But it’s very nice having the flowers, too. The grass was all full of daisies today—perfectly powdered with them.”
“Today? Where?”
“At the Cascine. And in under the trees there were millions of violets and crow’s-feet. Mr. Morton helped me to get them for mamma and Imogene. And we stayed so long that when we drove home the daisies had all shut up, and the little pink leaves outside made it look like a field of red clover. Are you never going there any more?”
Mrs. Bowen came in. From the fact that there was no greeting between her and Mr. Morton, Colville inferred that she was returning to the room after having already been there. She stood a moment, with a little uncertainty, when she had shaken hands with him, and then dropped upon the sofa beyond Effie. The little girl ran one hand through Colville’s arm, and the other through her mother’s, and gripped them fast. “Now I have got you both,” she triumphed, and smiled first into her face, and then into his.
“Be quiet, Effie,” said her mother, but she submitted.
“I hope you’re better for your drive today, Mrs. Bowen. Effie has been telling me about it.”
“We stayed out a long time. Yes, I think the air did me good; but I’m not an invalid, you know.”
“Oh no.”
“I’m feeling a little fagged. And the weather was tempting. I suppose you’ve been taking one of your long walks.”
“No, I’ve scarcely stirred out. I usually feel like going to meet the spring a little more than halfway; but this year I don’t, somehow.”
“A good many people are feeling rather languid, I believe,” said Mrs. Bowen.
“I hope you’ll get away from Florence,” said Colville.
“Oh,” she returned, with a faint flush, “I’m afraid Imogene exaggerated that a little.” She added, “You are very good.”
She was treating him more kindly than she had ever done since that Sunday afternoon when he came in with Imogene to say that he was going to stay. It might be merely because she had worn out her mood of severity, as people do, returning in good-humour to those with whom they were offended, merely through the reconciling force of time. She did not look at him, but this was better than meeting his eye with that interceptive glance. A strange peace touched his heart. Imogene and the young clergyman at the table across the room were intent on the book still; he was explaining and expatiating, and she listening. Colville saw that he had a fine head, and an intelligent, handsome, gentle face. When he turned again to Mrs. Bowen it was with the illusion that she had been saying something; but she was, in fact, sitting mute, and her face, with its bright colour, showed pathetically thin.
“I should imagine that Venice would be good for you,” he said.
“It’s still very harsh there, I hear. No; when we leave Florence, I think we will go to Switzerland.”
“Oh, not to Madame Schebres’s,” pleaded the child, turning upon her.
“No, not to Madame Schebres,” consented the mother. She continued, addressing Colville: “I was thinking of Lausanne. Do you know Lausanne at all?”
“Only from Gibbon’s report. It’s hardly up to date.”
“I thought of taking a house there for the summer,” said Mrs. Bowen, playing with Effie’s fingers. “It’s pleasant by the lake, I suppose.”
“It’s lovely by the lake!” cried the child. “Oh, do go,
