Americans -- Europe -- Fiction; British -- Europe -- Fiction; Male friendship -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
A charming pink flush had come into Angela’s cheek and a noticeable
light into her eye. She looked admirably handsome, and Bernard frankly
gazed at her. She met his gaze an instant, and then she went on.
“Mr. Longueville does n’t understand me either. You must know that I am
agitated,” she continued. “Every now and then I have moments of talking
nonsense. It ‘s the air of Baden, I think; it ‘s too exciting. It
‘s only lately I have been so. When you go away I shall be horribly
ashamed.”
“If the air of Baden has such an effect upon you,” said Bernard, “it
is only a proof the more that you need the solicitous attention of your
friends.”
“That may be; but, as I told you just now, I have no confidence--none
whatever, in any one or anything. Therefore, for the present, I shall
withdraw from the world--I shall seclude myself. Let us go on being
quiet, mamma. Three or four days of it have been so charming. Let the
parcel lie till it ‘s called for. It is much safer it should n’t be
touched at all. I shall assume that, metaphorically speaking, Mr.
Wright, who, as you have intimated, is our earthly providence, has
turned the key upon us. I am locked up. I shall not go out, except upon
the balcony!” And with this, Angela stepped out of the long window and
went and stood beside Miss Evers.
Bernard was extremely amused, but he was also a good deal puzzled, and
it came over him that it was not a wonder that poor Wright should not
have found this young lady’s disposition a perfectly decipherable page.
He remained in the room with Mrs. Vivian--he stood there looking at
her with his agreeably mystified smile. She had turned away, but on
perceiving that her daughter had gone outside she came toward
Bernard again, with her habitual little air of eagerness mitigated by
discretion. There instantly rose before his mind the vision of that
moment when he had stood face to face with this same apologetic mamma,
after Angela had turned her back, on the grass-grown terrace at Siena.
To make the vision complete, Mrs. Vivian took it into her head to utter
the same words.
“I am sure you think she is a strange girl.”
Bernard recognized them, and he gave a light laugh.
“You told me that the first time you ever saw me--in that quiet little
corner of an Italian town.”
Mrs. Vivian gave a little faded, elderly blush.
“Don’t speak of that,” she murmured, glancing at the open window. “It
was a little accident of travel.”
“I am dying to speak of it,” said Bernard. “It was such a charming
accident for me! Tell me this, at least--have you kept my sketch?”
Mrs. Vivian colored more deeply and glanced at the window again.
“No,” she just whispered.
Bernard looked out of the window too. Angela was leaning against the
railing of the balcony, in profile, just as she had stood while he
painted her, against the polished parapet at Siena. The young man’s eyes
rested on her a moment, then, as he glanced back at her mother:
“Has she kept it?” he asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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