“But your diamonds yield no interest, Si’ora, so they are hardly a wise investment.”
“I don’t want interest; I want something that is pretty to look at. Did my diamonds blaze? Your sister’s is the only grand house I have sung at. I sing for Mrs. Hawberk, but her house is not grand, and I take no money for singing at her parties. But I had ten guineas for singing at Lady Hartley’s—ten guineas for two little songs.”
“Bravissima, Si’ora! There are plenty of drawing-rooms in London where you may pick up gold and silver. There is a freshness about you and your singing that people will like, as a pleasant relief, after a grand opera. But now, Cara, I would earnestly warn you to have very little to do with Mr. Sefton, to keep him at the furthest possible distance. Believe me, he is a dangerous acquaintance.”
“Not to me,” said Lisa, snapping her fingers. “He is nothing to me, niente, niente, niente! My heart has never beat any faster for his coming. I am never sorry when he goes. He is kind to Paolo, and my aunt thinks him a delightful gentleman. He tells us stories about the lords and ladies he knows, and he helps me with my English. He makes me read to him. He tells me the meaning of words, and teaches me how to pronounce them. I should not have got on nearly so fast without his help.”
“Dangerous help, Si’ora. You are encouraging a traitor. Be sure his kindness springs from no good motive. He doesn’t want to marry you.”
“Do you think I want him for a husband?” exclaimed Lisa, with supreme contempt. “I shall never marry. No one will ever have the right to question me about Paolo’s father.”
There was a dignity in this assertion which showed that the unsophisticated daughter of the Isles had made some progress in social science. She knew at least that a husband was a person who might call her to account for her past life.
“I tell you that I don’t care for Mr. Sefton; but he amuses la Zia and me, and our lives would be very dull without him.”
“Better dullness than danger. The man is bad, Lisa, bad to the core. Some men are made so. In the county where he was born, among the neighbours who respected his father and mother, and who tolerate him for his name’s sake, he is neither trusted nor liked. Before he left the University, when he had only just come of age, there was a village tragedy in which he was known to be implicated, a tenant-farmer’s pretty daughter drowned in the milldam with her nameless child. The girl’s father was a tenant on the Sefton estate, as his father and grandfather had been before him. A connection of that kind with most young men would be sacred—but Wilfrid Sefton had no compunction. He was saved from exposure, for the love that the sufferers bore to his people; but the scandal became pretty well known in the neighbourhood, and the friends of his family who might have pitied him for the awful consequences of his sin, were disgusted by the indifference with which he treated the tragedy—living it down with a brazen front, and later, when he was owner of the estate, turning the girl’s father out of his holding, on the flimsiest excuse. Do you think such a man as that is worthy to be admitted to the home of an unprotected woman on a footing of friendship?”
“No, no, he is not worthy. If you tell me to shut my door against him, the door shall be shut. But is it true? Did this poor girl really drown herself because she could not bear to live disgraced? Are there women in England like that?”
“Yes, Lisa. There have been many such women. This girl belonged to the yeoman class—her forefathers had been settled in the land for two hundred years, sons of the soil, respected by their neighbours, and as proud of their good name as if it had been a patent of nobility; and this girl was young and sensitive. I have heard her story from those who saw her grow up from infancy to womanhood—gentle, yielding, guileless—an easy prey for an unscrupulous young man with a handsome face and a winning manner. He won her, blighted her, murdered her. Yes, Lisa, his crime came nearer murder than that dagger-thrust at Florian’s.”
“Don’t speak of that,” she cried, putting her fingers on his lips. “We must forget it. There never was such a thing—or at least you had nothing to do with it. It was Fate, not your will, that he should die like that. It was to be. Non si muove foglia che Iddio non voglia. I am glad you have told me about that girl. I never liked Mr. Sefton—never really liked him. However pleasant he was I had always a feeling that he was hiding something. There is a light in his eyes as if he were laughing at one. He is like Mephistopheles in the opera. It is not in his nature to be sorry for anyone.”
“And you will give him his congé?”
“Yes; he shall come here no more. I shall not let him know that you have told me that poor girl’s story. He might want to fight a duel with you, if he knew what you have said of him.”
“I don’t think he would, Lisa; but it is wiser to tell him nothing. You can say you have been told you are compromising yourself by receiving his visits.”
“Little Zinco does not love him,” said Lisa; “he will be pleased to see him dismissed. He says I should have no friend but him and my piano.”
“Zinco is a worthy soul.”
“Is he not? He pretends to be very proud of my success. For the
