The days passed, but brought with them no official invitation to Miss Light's wedding.He occasionally met her, and he occasionally met Prince Casamassima; but always separately, never together.They were apparently taking their happiness in the inexpressive manner proper to people of social eminence.
Rowland continued to see Madame Grandoni, for whom he felt a confirmed affection.He had always talked to her with frankness, but now he made her a confidant of all his hidden dejection.
Roderick and Roderick's concerns had been a common theme with him, and it was in the natural course to talk of Mrs.Hudson's arrival and Miss Garland's fine smile.
Madame Grandoni was an intelligent listener, and she lost no time in putting his case for him in a nutshell.
"At one moment you tell me the girl is plain," she said;"the next you tell me she 's pretty.I will invite them, and I shall see for myself.But one thing is very clear:
you are in love with her."
Rowland, for all answer, glanced round to see that no one heard her.
"More than that," she added, "you have been in love with her these two years.
There was that certain something about you!....I knew you were a mild, sweet fellow, but you had a touch of it more than was natural.
Why did n't you tell me at once? You would have saved me a great deal of trouble.And poor Augusta Blanchard too!"And herewith Madame Grandoni communicated a pertinent fact:
Augusta Blanchard and Mr.Leavenworth were going to make a match.
The young lady had been staying for a month at Albano, and Mr.Leavenworth had been dancing attendance.The event was a matter of course.
Rowland, who had been lately reproaching himself with a failure of attention to Miss Blanchard's doings, made some such observation.
"But you did not find it so!" cried his hostess.
"It was a matter of course, perhaps, that Mr.Leavenworth, who seems to be going about Europe with the sole view of picking up furniture for his 'home,' as he calls it, should think Miss Blanchard a very handsome piece; but it was not a matter of course--or it need n't have been--that she should be willing to become a sort of superior table-ornament.She would have accepted you if you had tried.""You are supposing the insupposable," said Rowland.
"She never gave me a particle of encouragement.""What would you have had her do? The poor girl did her best, and I am sure that when she accepted Mr.Leavenworth she thought of you.""She thought of the pleasure her marriage would give me.""Ay, pleasure indeed! She is a thoroughly good girl, but she has her little grain of feminine spite, like the rest.
Well, he 's richer than you, and she will have what she wants;but before I forgive you I must wait and see this new arrival--what do you call her?--Miss Garland.If I like her, I will forgive you; if I don't, I shall always bear you a grudge."Rowland answered that he was sorry to forfeit any advantage she might offer him, but that his exculpatory passion for Miss Garland was a figment of her fancy.Miss Garland was engaged to another man, and he himself had no claims.
"Well, then," said Madame Grandoni, "if I like her, we 'll have it that you ought to be in love with her.
If you fail in this, it will be a double misdemeanor.
The man she 's engaged to does n't care a straw for her.
Leave me alone and I 'll tell her what I think of you."As to Christina Light's marriage, Madame Grandoni could make no definite statement.The young girl, of late, had made her several flying visits, in the intervals of the usual pre-matrimonial shopping and dress-fitting; she had spoken of the event with a toss of her head, as a matter which, with a wise old friend who viewed things in their essence, she need not pretend to treat as a solemnity.It was for Prince Casamassima to do that.
"It is what they call a marriage of reason," she once said.
"That means, you know, a marriage of madness!""What have you said in the way of advice?" Rowland asked.
"Very little, but that little has favored the prince.
I know nothing of the mysteries of the young lady's heart.
It may be a gold-mine, but at any rate it 's a mine, and it 's a long journey down into it.But the marriage in itself is an excellent marriage.It 's not only brilliant, but it 's safe.
I think Christina is quite capable of making it a means of misery;but there is no position that would be sacred to her.
Casamassima is an irreproachable young man; there is nothing against him but that he is a prince.It is not often, I fancy, that a prince has been put through his paces at this rate.
No one knows the wedding-day; the cards of invitation have been printed half a dozen times over, with a different date;each time Christina has destroyed them.There are people in Rome who are furious at the delay; they want to get away;they are in a dreadful fright about the fever, but they are dying to see the wedding, and if the day were fixed, they would make their arrangements to wait for it.
I think it very possible that after having kept them a month and produced a dozen cases of malaria, Christina will be married at midnight by an old friar, with simply the legal witnesses.""It is true, then, that she has become a Catholic?""So she tells me.One day she got up in the depths of despair;at her wit's end, I suppose, in other words, for a new sensation.
Suddenly it occurred to her that the Catholic church might after all hold the key, might give her what she wanted! She sent for a priest;he happened to be a clever man, and he contrived to interest her.
She put on a black dress and a black lace veil, and looking handsomer than ever she rustled into the Catholic church.
The prince, who is very devout, and who had her heresy sorely on his conscience, was thrown into an ecstasy.
May she never have a caprice that pleases him less!"Rowland had already asked Madame Grandoni what, to her perception, was the present state of matters between Christina and Roderick;and he now repeated his question with some earnestness of apprehension.
