LITMIR.BIZ

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done something particularly disgraceful. She was at first annoyed and then made seriously anxious by the young girl's total failure in society, from the social point of view. Laura was beautiful, good, and accomplished. Ugly, spiteful, and stupid girls succeeded better than she, though some of them had no better prospect of a dowry. The good lady sought in vain the cause of the trouble, but failed to find it out. Had she been born in Rome, she would doubtless have had many kind friends to help her in the solution of the difficulty. But though she bore a Roman name, and had adopted Roman customs and had led a Roman life for nearly twenty years, she was tacitly looked upon as a foreigner, and her daughter was treated in the same way, though she, at least, spoke the language as her own. Moreover, the girl was not a Catholic, and that was an additional disadvantage where matrimony was concerned. It became evident to the Princess that she was not likely to find a husband for her daughter—certainly not such a husband as she had dreamed that Laura might love, and who was to love her and make her happy.

      It must not be supposed that Gerano himself would have been indifferent if he had known the real facts of the case. But he did not. Like many elderly Romans, he hardly ever went into society and took very little interest in its doings. He was very much concerned with the administration of his fortune, and for his own daughter's welfare in her new surroundings. He spent a good deal of time at his club, and was often in the country, even in the height of the season. He supposed that no one asked for Laura's hand because she was dowerless, and he was sincerely sorry for it; but it did not enter his mind to provide her with a suitable portion out of his abundance. He was too conscientious for that. What he had inherited from his father must go down intact to his child and to her children—a son had already been born to the young Savelli—and to divide the property, or to take from it anything like a fortune for Laura, would be little short of actual robbery in the eyes of a Braccio.

      Laura herself was perhaps less disturbed by the coldness she encountered than her mother was for her sake. She had a certain contempt for young girls of her age and younger, whose sole idea was to be married as soon as possible and with the greatest advantage to themselves. She was not very vain and did not expect great admiration on the one hand, nor any particular dislike on the other. Her character, too, was one that must develop slowly, if it were ever to attain its mature growth. She doubtless had moments of annoyance and even of depression; for few young girls, and certainly no women, are wholly unconscious of neglect in society. But although she was naturally inclined to melancholy, as her eyes clearly showed, she was not by nature morbid, and assuredly not more than usually imaginative.

      The result of all this was, that she bore herself with considerable dignity in the world, was generally believed to be older than she was, and was to be seen more often dancing or talking with the foreigners at parties than with the Romans.

      "Who is that, Ghisleri?" asked Lord Herbert Arden of his old friend, one evening early in the season, as he caught sight of Laura for the first time.

      "An English Roman girl," answered the Italian. "The daughter of the Princess of Gerano by her first marriage—Miss Carlyon."

      Lord Herbert had not been in Rome for three or four years, and was, moreover, by no means acquainted with all Roman society.

      "Will you introduce me?" he asked, looking up at Ghisleri.

      Ghisleri led him across the room, introduced him and left the two together, he being at that time very particularly engaged in another quarter.

      The contrast between the two men was very strong. Lord Herbert Arden was almost, if not quite, a cripple, the victim in his infancy of a serving-woman's carelessness. The nurse had let him fall, had concealed the accident as long as she could, and the boy had grown up misshapen and feeble. In despite of this, however, he was eminently a man at whom every one looked twice. No one who had seen him could ever forget the extreme nobility and delicacy of his pale face. Each feature completed and gave dignity to the next—the broad, highly modelled forehead, the prominent brow, the hollows at the temples, the clear, steady brown eyes, the aquiline nose and sensitive nostrils, the calm, straight mouth, and the firm, clearly cut chin—all were in harmony. And yet in all the crowd that thronged the great drawing-rooms there was hardly a man with whom the young Englishman would not have exchanged face and figure, if only he might stand at the height of other men, straight and square, and be free forever from the halting gait which made life in the world so hard for him. He was very human, and made no great pretence of resignation, nor indeed of any other virtue.

      Pietro Ghisleri was a very different personage except, perhaps, in point of humanity. He had seen and enjoyed much, if he had suffered much also, and his face bore the traces of past pleasure and of past pain, though he was not more than two-and-thirty years of age. It was a strong face, too, and not without signs of superior intelligence and resolution. The keen blue eyes had that trick of fixing themselves in conversation, which belongs to combative temperaments. At other times they were sad in expression, and often wore a weary look. Ghisleri's complexion might almost have been called weather-beaten; for frequent and long exposure to sun and weather had permanently changed its original colouring, which had been decidedly fair. To adopt the simple style of his passport, he might be described as six feet high, eyes blue, hair and moustache brown, nose large, mouth normal, chin prominent, face somewhat bony—particular sign, a scar on the left temple. Like his old friend Lord Herbert, he was one of the dozen men who always attract attention in a crowded room. But of all those who looked at him, having known him long, very few understood his character in the least, and all would have been very much surprised if they could have guessed his thoughts, especially on that particular evening when he introduced Arden to Miss Carlyon. As for the rest, he was alone in the world, his own master, the last of a Tuscan family that had refused to bear a title when titles meant something and had not seen any reason for changing its mind in the course of three or four centuries. He had a small fortune, sufficient for his wants, and a castle somewhere, considerably the worse for war and wear.

      "I cannot dance, you see," said Arden, seating himself beside Laura, "and I am afraid that I am not very brilliant in conversation. Are you a very good-natured person?"

      Laura turned her sad eyes upon her new acquaintance, and immediately felt a thrill of sympathy for him, and of interest in his remarkable face.

      "No one ever told me," she answered. "Do you think you could find out? I should like to know."

      "What form of sin do you most affect?" asked Arden, with a smile. "Do you more often do the things you ought not to do, or do you leave undone the things which you ought to do?"

      "Oh, I leave the good things undone, of course!" answered Laura. "I suppose everybody does, as a rule."

      "You are decidedly good-natured, particularly so in making that last remark. I am less afraid of you than I was when I sat down."

      The young girl looked at him again. His conversation was so far not like that of the Englishmen she had known hitherto.

      "Were you afraid of me?" she asked, beginning to smile.

      "A little, I confess."

      "Why? And if you were, why did you make Signor Ghisleri introduce you to me?"

      "Because nobody likes to own to being afraid. Besides, Ghisleri is a very old friend of mine, and I can trust him not to lead me into danger."

      "Have you known him long?" asked Laura. "I have often wondered what he is really like. I mean his character, you know, and what he thinks about."

      "He thinks a great deal. He is one of the most complicated characters I ever knew, and I am not at all sure that I understand him yet, though we have known each other ten years. He is a good friend and a rather indifferent enemy, I should say. His chief apparent peculiarity is that he hates gossip. You will not find it easy to get from him a disagreeable remark about any one. Yet he is not good-natured."

      "Perhaps he is afraid to say what he thinks," suggested the young girl.

      "I doubt that," answered Arden, with a smile. "He has not a particularly angelic reputation, I believe, but I never heard any one say that he was timid."

      "As you pretend to be," added Laura. "Do you know?

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