"Your state of mind brings back my own so completely," I
said presently. "You admire her--you adore her, and yet, secretly, you
mistrust her. You are enchanted with her personal charm, her grace, her
wit, her everything; and yet in your private heart you are afraid of
her."
"Afraid of her?"
"Your mistrust keeps rising to the surface; you can't rid yourself of the
suspicion that at the bottom of all things she is hard and cruel, and you
would be immensely relieved if some one should persuade you that your
suspicion is right."
Stanmer made no direct reply to this; but before we reached the hotel he
said--"What did you ever know about the mother?"
"It's a terrible story," I answered.
He looked at me askance. "What did she do?"
"Come to my rooms this evening and I will tell you."
He declared he would, but he never came. Exactly the way I should have
acted!
14th.--I went again, last evening, to Casa Salvi, where I found the same
little circle, with the addition of a couple of ladies. Stanmer was
there, trying hard to talk to one of them, but making, I am sure, a very
poor business of it. The Countess--well, the Countess was admirable. She
greeted me like a friend of ten years, toward whom familiarity should not
have engendered a want of ceremony; she made me sit near her, and she
asked me a dozen questions about my health and my occupations.
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