There was Christina Light, who had too much, and here was Miss Blanchard, who had too little, and there was Mary Garland (in whom the quality was wholly uncultivated), who had just the right amount.
He went to Madame Grandoni in an adjoining room, where she was pouring out tea.
"I will make you an excellent cup," she said, "because I have forgiven you."He looked at her, answering nothing; but he swallowed his tea with great gusto, and a slight deepening of his color;by all of which one would have known that he was gratified.
In a moment he intimated that, in so far as he had sinned, he had forgiven himself.
"She is a lovely girl," said Madame Grandoni."There is a great deal there.
I have taken a great fancy to her, and she must let me make a friend of her.""She is very plain," said Rowland, slowly, "very simple, very ignorant.""Which, being interpreted, means, 'She is very handsome, very subtle, and has read hundreds of volumes on winter evenings in the country.'
"
"You are a veritable sorceress," cried Rowland; "you frighten me away!"As he was turning to leave her, there rose above the hum of voices in the drawing-room the sharp, grotesque note of a barking dog.
Their eyes met in a glance of intelligence.
"There is the sorceress!" said Madame Grandoni.
"The sorceress and her necromantic poodle!" And she hastened back to the post of hospitality.
Rowland followed her, and found Christina Light standing in the middle of the drawing-room, and looking about in perplexity.Her poodle, sitting on his haunches and gazing at the company, had apparently been expressing a sympathetic displeasure at the absence of a welcome.
But in a moment Madame Grandoni had come to the young girl's relief, and Christina had tenderly kissed her.
"I had no idea," said Christina, surveying the assembly, "that you had such a lot of grand people, or I would not have come in.
The servant said nothing; he took me for an invitee.I came to spend a neighborly half-hour; you know I have n't many left!
It was too dismally dreary at home.I hoped I should find you alone, and I brought Stenterello to play with the cat.
I don't know that if I had known about all this I would have dared to come in; but since I 've stumbled into the midst of it, I beg you 'll let me stay.I am not dressed, but am I very hideous?
I will sit in a corner and no one will notice me.
My dear, sweet lady, do let me stay.Pray, why did n't you ask me? I never have been to a little party like this.
They must be very charming.No dancing--tea and conversation?
No tea, thank you; but if you could spare a biscuit for Stenterello;a sweet biscuit, please.Really, why did n't you ask me?
Do you have these things often? Madame Grandoni, it 's very unkind!"And the young girl, who had delivered herself of the foregoing succession of sentences in her usual low, cool, penetrating voice, uttered these last words with a certain tremor of feeling.
"I see," she went on, "I do very well for balls and great banquets, but when people wish to have a cosy, friendly, comfortable evening, they leave me out, with the big flower-pots and the gilt candlesticks.""I 'm sure you 're welcome to stay, my dear," said Madame Grandoni, "and at the risk of displeasing you I must confess that if Idid n't invite you, it was because you 're too grand.
Your dress will do very well, with its fifty flounces, and there is no need of your going into a corner.
Indeed, since you 're here, I propose to have the glory of it.
You must remain where my people can see you.""They are evidently determined to do that by the way they stare.
Do they think I intend to dance a tarantella? Who are they all;do I know them?" And lingering in the middle of the room, with her arm passed into Madame Grandoni's, she let her eyes wander slowly from group to group.They were of course observing her.Standing in the little circle of lamplight, with the hood of an Eastern burnous, shot with silver threads, falling back from her beautiful head, one hand gathering together its voluminous, shimmering folds, and the other playing with the silken top-knot on the uplifted head of her poodle, she was a figure of radiant picturesqueness.
She seemed to be a sort of extemporized tableau vivant.
Rowland's position made it becoming for him to speak to her without delay.As she looked at him he saw that, judging by the light of her beautiful eyes, she was in a humor of which she had not yet treated him to a specimen.
In a simpler person he would have called it exquisite kindness;but in this young lady's deportment the flower was one thing and the perfume another."Tell me about these people," she said to him.
"I had no idea there were so many people in Rome I had not seen.
What are they all talking about? It 's all beyond me, I suppose.
There is Miss Blanchard, sitting as usual in profile against a dark object.She is like a head on a postage-stamp.And there is that nice little old lady in black, Mrs.Hudson.
What a dear little woman for a mother! Comme elle est proprette!
And the other, the fiancee, of course she 's here.Ah, I see!"She paused; she was looking intently at Miss Garland.
Rowland measured the intentness of her glance, and suddenly acquired a firm conviction."I should like so much to know her!"she said, turning to Madame Grandoni."She has a charming face;I am sure she 's an angel.I wish very much you would introduce me.
No, on second thoughts, I had rather you did n't.I will speak to her bravely myself, as a friend of her cousin." Madame Grandoni and Rowland exchanged glances of baffled conjecture, and Christina flung off her burnous, crumpled it together, and, with uplifted finger,tossing it into a corner, gave it in charge to her poodle.
He stationed himself upon it, on his haunches, with upright vigilance.
Christina crossed the room with the step and smile of a ministering angel, and introduced herself to Mary Garland.
She had once told Rowland that she would show him, some day, how gracious her manners could be; she was now redeeming her promise.
