William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
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way, and presently stopped at Mrs. Vervain's gate; this time she had not expected it. Don Ippolito gave her his hand, and entered the garden with her, while Ferris lingered behind with Florida, helping her put together the wraps strewn about the gondola.
"Wait!" she commanded, as they moved up the garden walk. "I want to speak with you about Don Ippolito. What shall I do to him for my rudeness? You must tell me—you shall," she said in a fierce whisper, gripping the arm which Ferris had given to help her up the landing-stairs. "You are—older than I am!"
"Thanks. I was afraid you were going to say wiser. I should think your own sense of justice, your own sense of"—
"Decency. Say it, say it!" cried the girl passionately; "it was indecent, indecent—that was it!"
—"would tell you what to do," concluded the painter dryly.
She flung away the arm to which she had been clinging, and ran to where the priest stood with her mother at the foot of the terrace stairs. "Don Ippolito," she cried, "I want to tell you that I am sorry; I want to ask your pardon—how can you ever forgive me?—for what I said."
She instinctively stretched her hand towards him.
"Oh!" said the priest, with an indescribable long, trembling sigh. He caught her hand in his held it tight, and then pressed it for an instant against his breast.
Ferris made a little start forward.
"Now, that's right, Florida," said her mother, as the four stood in the pale, estranging moonlight. "I'm sure Don Ippolito can't cherish any resentment. If he does, he must come in and wash it out with a glass of wine—that's a good old fashion. I want you to have the wine at any rate, Don Ippolito; it'll keep you from taking cold. You really must."
"Thanks, madama; I cannot lose more time, now; I must go home at once. Good night."
Before Mrs. Vervain could frame a protest, or lay hold of him, he bowed and hurried out of the land-gate.
"How perfectly absurd for him to get into the water in that way," she said, looking mechanically in the direction in which he had vanished.
"Well, Mrs. Vervain, it isn't best to be too grateful to people," said Ferris, "but I think we must allow that if we were in any danger, sticking there in the mud, Don Ippolito got us out of it by putting his shoulder to the oar."
"Of course," assented Mrs. Vervain.
"In fact," continued Ferris, "I suppose we may say that, under Providence, we probably owe our lives to Don Ippolito's self-sacrifice and Miss Vervain's knowledge of German. At any rate, it's what I shall always maintain."
"Mother, don't you think you had better go in?" asked Florida, gently. Her gentleness ignored the presence, the existence of Ferris. "I'm afraid you will be sick after all this fatigue."
"There, Mrs. Vervain, it'll be no use offering me a glass of wine. I'm sent away, you see," said Ferris. "And Miss Vervain is quite right. Good night."
"Oh—good night, Mr. Ferris," said Mrs. Vervain, giving her hand. "Thank you so much."
Florida did not look towards him. She gathered her mother's shawl about her shoulders for the twentieth time that day, and softly urged her in doors, while Ferris let himself out into the campo.
IX
Florida began to prepare the bed for her mother's lying down.
"What are you doing that for, my dear?" asked Mrs. Vervain. "I can't go to bed at once."
"But mother"—
"No, Florida. And I mean it. You are too headstrong. I should think you would see yourself how you suffer in the end by giving way to your violent temper. What a day you have made for us!"
"I was very wrong," murmured the proud girl, meekly.
"And then the mortification of an apology; you might have spared yourself that."
"It didn't mortify me; I didn't care for it."
"No, I really believe you are too haughty to mind humbling yourself. And Don Ippolito had been so uniformly kind to us. I begin to believe that Mr. Ferris caught your true character in that sketch. But your pride will be broken some day, Florida."
"Won't you let me help you undress, mother? You can talk to me while you're undressing. You must try to get some rest."
"Yes, I am all unstrung. Why couldn't you have let him come in and talk awhile? It would have been the best way to get me quieted down. But no; you must always have your own way Don't twitch me, my dear; I'd rather undress myself. You pretend to be very careful of me. I wonder if you really care for me."
"Oh, mother, you are all I have in the world!"
Mrs. Vervain began to whimper. "You talk as if I were any better off. Have I anybody besides you? And I have lost so many."
"Don't think of those things now, mother."
Mrs. Vervain tenderly kissed the young girl. "You are good to your mother. Don Ippolito was right; no one ever saw you offer me disrespect or unkindness. There, there! Don't cry, my darling. I think I had better lie down, and I'll let you undress me."
She suffered herself to be helped into bed, and Florida went softly about the room, putting it in order, and drawing the curtains closer to keep out the near dawn. Her mother talked a little while, and presently fell from incoherence to silence, and so to sleep.
Florida looked hesitatingly at her for a moment, and then set her candle on the floor and sank wearily into an arm-chair beside the bed. Her hands fell into her lap; her head drooped sadly forward; the light flung the shadow of her face grotesquely exaggerated and foreshortened upon the ceiling.
By and by a bird piped in the garden; the shriek of a swallow made itself heard from a distance; the vernal day was beginning to stir from the light, brief drowse of the vernal night. A crown of angry red formed upon the candle wick, which toppled over in the socket and guttered out with a sharp hiss.
Florida started from her chair. A streak of sunshine pierced shutter and curtain. Her mother was supporting herself on one elbow in the bed, and looking at her as if she had just called to her.
"Mother, did you speak?" asked the girl.
Mrs. Vervain turned her face away; she sighed deeply, stretched her thin hands on the pillow, and seemed to be sinking, sinking down through the bed. She ceased to breathe and lay in a dead faint.
Florida felt rather than saw it all. She did not cry out nor call for help. She brought water and cologne, and bathed her mother's face, and then chafed her hands. Mrs. Vervain slowly revived; she opened her eyes, then closed them; she did not speak, but after a while she began to fetch her breath with the long and even respirations of sleep.
Florida noiselessly opened the door, and met the servant with a tray of coffee. She put her finger to her lip, and motioned her not to enter, asking in a whisper: "What time is it, Nina? I forgot to wind my watch."
"It's nine o'clock, signorina; and I thought you would be tired this morning, and would like your coffee in bed. Oh, misericordia!" cried the girl, still in whisper, with a glance through the doorway, "you haven't been in bed at all!"
"My mother doesn't seem well. I sat down beside her, and fell asleep in my chair without knowing it."
"Ah, poor little thing! Then you must drink your coffee at once. It refreshes."
"Yes, yes," said Florida, closing the door, and pointing to a table in the next room, "put it down here. I will serve myself, Nina. Go call the gondola, please. I am going out, at once, and I want you to go with me. Tell Checa to come here and stay with my mother till I come back."
She