“Room!” he cried. “Oh no; there’s no occasion for a room. I wouldn’t trouble you for the world. I have got rooms at the hotel. I’ll not stay even, since daddy’s out, to meet him. You can tell him I’m here, and what I came for. If he wants to see me, he can look me up. I am very glad I have seen _you_. I’ll write to the mother to-night to say you’re quite satisfactory, and a credit to all your belongings; and I’ll come to-morrow to see Con; and in the meantime, Fan, you must settle when you are to come; for it is an awkward time for a man to be loafing about here.”
He got up as he spoke, and stooping, gave her a serious brotherly kiss upon her forehead. “I hope you and I will be very great friends,” he said.
And then he was gone! Was he a dream only, an imagination? But he was not the sort of figure that imagination produces. No dream-man could ever be so comical to behold, could ever wear a coat so curiously wrinkled, or those boots, in the curves of which the dust lay as in the inequalities of the dry and much-frequented road.
The walk with Constance, though he had set out upon it reluctantly, had done Waring great good. He was comparatively rehabilitated in his own eyes. Between her and him there was no embarrassment, no uneasy consciousness. She had paid him the highest compliment by taking refuge with him, flying to his protection from the tyranny of her mother, and giving him thus a victory as sweet as unexpected over that nearest yet furthest of all connections, that inalienable antagonist in life. He had been painfully put out of _son assiette_, as the French say. Instead of the easy superiority which he had held not only in his own house, but in the limited society about, he had been made to stand at the bar, first by his own child, afterwards by the old clergyman, for whom he entertained a kindly contempt. Both of these simple wits had called upon him to account for his conduct. It was the most extraordinary turning of the tables that ever had occurred to a man like himself. And though he had spoken the truth when in that moment of melting he had taken his little girl into his arms and bidden her stay with him, he was yet glad now to get away from Frances, to feel himself occupying his proper place with her sister, and to return thus to a more natural state of affairs. The intercourse between him and his child-companion had been closer than ever could, he believed, exist between him and any other human being whatsoever; but it had been rent in twain by all the concealments which he was conscious of, by all the discoveries which circumstances had forced upon her. He could no longer be at his ease with her, or she regard him as of old. The attachment was too deep, the interruption too hard, to be reconcilable with that calm which is necessary to ordinary existence. Constance had restored him to herself by her pleasant indifference, her easy talk, her unconsciousness of everything that was not usual and natural. He began to think that if Frances were but away--since she wished to go--a new life might begin--a life in which there would be nothing below the surface, no mystery, which is a mistake in ordinary life. It would be difficult, no doubt, for a brilliant creature like Constance to content herself with the humdrum life which suited Frances; and whether she would condescend to look after his comforts, he did not know. But so long as Mariuccia was there, he could not suffer much materially; and she was a very amusing companion, far more so than her sister. As he came back to the Palazzo, he was reconciled to himself.