Part 11 (2/2)
”You are contented, then?”
”Yes. Contentment is a poor subst.i.tute for happiness; but I am contented.”
He longed to speak intimately, yet had no excuse for doing so.
”How much I wish it was in my power to brighten your content into happiness again,” he said.
She smiled at him.
”Thank you for such a friendly wish. I am sure you mean it.”
”Indeed I do.”
”Perhaps I shall come to London some day, and then you would befriend me a little.”
”How much I hope you will--soon.”
”But I am dull and stupid still. I have great relapses and sometimes cannot even endure my uncle's voice. Then I shut myself up. I chain myself like a savage thing, for a time, till I am patient again.”
”You should have distractions.”
”There are plenty--even here, though you might not guess it.
Giuseppe Doria sings to me and I go out in the launch now and then.
I always travel to and fro that way when I have to visit Dartmouth for Uncle Ben and for the household provisions. And I am to have chickens to rear in the spring.”
”The Italian--”
”He is a gentleman, Mr. Brendon--a great gentleman, you might say. I do not understand him very well. But I am safe with him. He would do nothing base or small. He confided in me when first I came. He then had a dream to find a rich wife, who would love him and enable him to restore the castle of the Doria in Italy and build up the family again. He is full of romance and has such energy and queer, magnetic power that I can quite believe he will achieve his hopes some day.”
”Does he still possess this ambition?”
Jenny was silent for a moment. Her eyes looked out of the window over the restless sea.
”Why not?” she asked.
”He is, I should think, a man that women might fall in love with.”
”Oh, yes--he is amazingly handsome and there are fine thoughts in him.”
Mark felt disposed to warn her but felt that any counsel from him would be an impertinence. She seemed to read his mind, however.
”I shall never marry again,” she said.
”n.o.body would dare to ask you to do so--n.o.body who knows all that you have been called to suffer. Not for many a long day yet, I mean,” he answered awkwardly.
”You understand,” she replied and took his hand impulsively. ”There is a great gulf I think fixed between us Anglo-Saxons and the Latins. Their minds move far more swiftly than ours. They are more hungry to get everything possible out of life. Doria is a child in many ways; but a delightful, poetical child. I think England rather chills him; yet he vows there are no rich women in Italy. He longs for Italy all the same. I expect he will go home again presently. He will leave Uncle Ben in the spring--so he confides to me; but do not whisper it, for my uncle thinks highly of him and would hate to lose him. He can do everything and antic.i.p.ates our wishes and whims in the most magical way.”
”Well, I must not keep you any longer.”
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