William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
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were something in the blood. They all get the idea that you have money, you know."
"Then I should say that it might be something in the pocket," suggested Ferris with a look at Miss Vervain, in whose silent suffering, as he imagined it, he found a malicious consolation for her scorn.
"Well, whatever it is," replied Mrs. Vervain, "it's too vexatious. Of course, going to new places, that way, as we're always doing, and only going to stay for a limited time, perhaps, you can't pick and choose. And even when you do get an elderly teacher, they're as bad as any. It really is too trying. Now, when I was talking with that nice monk of yours at the convent, there, I couldn't help thinking how perfectly delightful it would be if Florida could have him for a teacher. Why couldn't she? He told me that he would come to take breakfast or lunch with us, but not dinner, for he always had to be at the convent before nightfall. Well, he might come to give the lessons sometime in the middle of the day."
"You couldn't manage it, Mrs. Vervain, I know you couldn't," answered Ferris earnestly. "I'm sure the Armenians never do anything of the kind. They're all very busy men, engaged in ecclesiastical or literary work, and they couldn't give the time."
"Why not? There was Byron."
"But Byron went to them, and he studied Armenian, not Italian, with them. Padre Girolamo speaks perfect Italian, for all that I can see; but I doubt if he'd undertake to impart the native accent, which is what you want. In fact, the scheme is altogether impracticable."
"Well," said Mrs. Vervain; "I'm exceedingly sorry. I had quite set my heart on it. I never took such a fancy to any one in such a short time before."
"It seemed to be a case of love at first sight on both sides," said Ferris. "Padre Girolamo doesn't shower those syruped rose-leaves indiscriminately upon visitors."
"Thanks," returned Mrs. Vervain; "it's very good of you to say so, Mr. Ferris, and it's very gratifying, all round; but don't you see, it doesn't serve the present purpose. What teachers do you know of?"
She had been by marriage so long in the service of the United States that she still regarded its agents as part of her own domestic economy. Consuls she everywhere employed as functionaries specially appointed to look after the interests of American ladies traveling without protection. In the week which had passed since her arrival in Venice, there had been no day on which she did not appeal to Ferris for help or sympathy or advice. She took amiable possession of him at once, and she had established an amusing sort of intimacy with him, to which the haughty trepidations of her daughter set certain bounds, but in which the demand that he should find her a suitable Italian teacher seemed trivially matter of course.
"Yes. I know several teachers," he said, after thinking awhile; "but they're all open to the objection of being human; and besides, they all do things in a set kind of way, and I'm afraid they wouldn't enter into the spirit of any scheme of instruction that departed very widely from Ollendorff." He paused, and Mrs. Vervain gave a sketch of the different professional masters whom she had employed in the various countries of her sojourn, and a disquisition upon their several lives and characters, fortifying her statements by reference of doubtful points to her daughter. This occupied some time, and Ferris listened to it all with an abstracted air. At last he said, with a smile, "There was an Italian priest came to see me this morning, who astonished me by knowing English—with a brogue that he'd learned from an English priest straight from Dublin; perhaps he might do, Mrs. Vervain? He's professionally pledged, you know, not to give the kind of annoyance you've suffered from in teachers. He would do as well as Padre Girolamo, I suppose."
"Do you really? Are you in earnest?"
"Well, no, I believe I'm not. I haven't the least idea he would do. He belongs to the church militant. He came to me with the model of a breech-loading cannon he's invented, and he wanted a passport to go to America, so that he might offer his cannon to our government."
"How curious!" said Mrs. Vervain, and her daughter looked frankly into Ferris's face. "But I know; it's one of your jokes."
"You overpraise me, Mrs. Vervain. If I could make such jokes as that priest was, I should set up for a humorist at once. He had the touch of pathos that they say all true pieces of humor ought to have," he went on instinctively addressing himself to Miss Vervain, who did not repulse him. "He made me melancholy; and his face haunts me. I should like to paint him. Priests are generally such a snuffy, common lot. And I dare say," he concluded, "he's sufficiently commonplace, too, though he didn't look it. Spare your romance, Miss Vervain."
The young lady blushed resentfully. "I see as little romance as joke in it," she said.
"It was a cannon," returned Ferris, without taking any notice of her, and with a sort of absent laugh, "that would make it very lively for the Southerners—if they had it. Poor fellow! I suppose he came with high hopes of me, and expected me to receive his invention with eloquent praises. I've no doubt he figured himself furnished not only with a passport, but with a letter from me to President Lincoln, and foresaw his own triumphal entry into Washington, and his honorable interviews with the admiring generals of the Union forces, to whom he should display his wonderful cannon. Too bad; isn't it?"
"And why didn't you give him the passport and the letter?" asked Mrs. Vervain.
"Oh, that's a state secret," returned Ferris.
"And you think he won't do for our purpose?"
"I don't indeed."
"Well, I'm not so sure of it. Tell me something more about him."
"I don't know anything more about him. Besides, there isn't time."
The gondola had already entered the canal, and was swiftly approaching the hotel.
"Oh yes, there is," pleaded Mrs. Vervain, laying her hand on his arm. "I want you to come in and dine with us. We dine early."
"Thank you, I can't. Affairs of the nation, you know. Rebel privateer on the canal of the Brenta."
"Really?" Mrs. Vervain leaned towards Ferris for sharper scrutiny of his face. Her glasses sprang from her nose, and precipitated themselves into his bosom.
"Allow me," he said, with burlesque politeness, withdrawing them from the recesses of his waistcoat and gravely presenting them. Miss Vervain burst into a helpless laugh; then she turned toward her mother with a kind of indignant tenderness, and gently arranged her shawl so that it should not drop off when she rose to leave the gondola. She did not look again at Ferris, who resisted Mrs. Vervain's entreaties to remain, and took leave as soon as the gondola landed.
The ladies went to their room, where Florida lifted from the table a vase of divers-colored hyacinths, and stepping out upon the balcony flung the flowers into the canal. As she put down the empty vase, the lingering perfume of the banished flowers haunted the air of the room.
"Why, Florida," said her mother, "those were the flowers that Mr. Ferris gave you. Did you fancy they had begun to decay? The smell of hyacinths when they're a little old is dreadful. But I can't imagine a gentleman's giving you flowers that were at all old."
"Oh, mother, don't speak to me!" cried Miss Vervain, passionately, clasping her hands to her face.
"Now I see that I've been saying something to vex you, my darling," and seating herself beside the young girl on the sofa, she fondly took down her hands. "Do tell me what it was. Was it about your teachers falling in love with you? You know they did, Florida: Pestachiavi and Schulze, both; and that horrid old Fleuron."
"Did you think I liked any better on that account to have you talk it over with a stranger?" asked Florida, still angrily.
"That's true, my dear," said Mrs. Vervain, penitently. "But if it worried you, why didn't you do something to stop me? Give me a hint, or just a little knock, somewhere?"
"No, mother; I'd rather not. Then you'd have come out with the whole thing, to prove that you were right. It's better to let it go," said Florida with a fierce laugh, half sob. "But it's strange that you can't remember how such things torment me."
"I