He went on with unbroken good humor. She had never seen him angry, but the possibility of it, some hidden force suspected in him, quelled her, of late, when she considered the likelihood of rousing it.
"No, of course not," he said, with his habitual geniality. "Why aren't you staying with them?"
She temporized, only from the general certainty that it was unsafe for him to know too much.
"Peter asked me to stay there. His grandmother is very kind. I like her."
"They must have. They have the air. Will they do anything for you?"
Her face contracted. The look of youth had fled and left her haggard.
"Why did you come over here?" she cried irrepressibly.
"The prince is much disturbed about you," he volunteered, throwing it into the talk as if it were of no particular validity, but only interesting as one chose to take it.
"I saw him two weeks ago, in Milan. He was greatly troubled. I had to own that you had left Paris without seeing me, without even telling me your whereabouts."
She knew what else had happened. The prince had urged, "Go over to America. Influence her. Bring her back with you." But this she did not say. The unbroken cordiality of his attitude always made his best defense. If she had ever known harshness from him, she might brave it again. But many forces between them were as yet unmeasured. She did not dare.
"You must remember," he said, with the air of talking over reasonably something to which he was not even persuading her, "the prince is exceptionally placed. He could give you a certain position."
"I have a certain position now. Don't forget that, will you?" She seemed to speak from an extremity of distaste.
"He offers a private marriage. He is not likely to set it aside; the elder line is quite assured, so far as anything can be in this world. Besides"--he looked at her winningly--"you believe in love. He loves you."
"I did believe in it," she said haltingly, as if the words were difficult. "I should find it hard now to tell what I believe."
"Well!" He took off his hat to invite the summer breeze. It stirred the hair above his noble forehead, and Rose, in a sickness at old affection dead, knew, without glancing at him, how he looked, and marveled that any one so admirably made could seem to her so persistently ranged with evil forces. Yet, she reflected, it was only because he arrogated power to himself. He put his hands upon the wheels of life and jarred them.