The Lady Paramount

ay terminated, gave a festa in her honour at his villa in Vallanza. Cannon had been fired in the morning: two-and-twenty salvoes, if you please, though Su

nza, Presa, and Veno as its points; and I need n't tell anyone who knows the island of Sampaolo that the Marchese Baldo del Ponte's Mermaid, En

escorted her and her duenna, the Baroness Casaterrena, down through the purple Italian night, musical with the rivalries of a hundred nightingales, to the sea-wall, where, at his private landing-stage, in the bat-haunted gl

o the Baroness. She was a heavy body, slow and circumspect in her motions; but at length she had safely found her place among the silk cushions in the stern, and the Commendatore, turning bac

l yards out in the bay; and one could hear the Baroness,

erma,

that rather deep voice of hers, t

eld its course towards the glo

datore sta

e Commendatore stared, now at Susanna, now after the bobbing lanterns of the laun

at last. Many emotions were

uralness that perhaps was studi

permission; and this, in any case, was such an incomprehensib

" he puzzled, "wil

the air. Then, with the sweetest smile-through which there pierced, perhaps, just a faint glimmer of secret

the rub and dip of oars became audible, rhythmically nearing; and a minute after, from the outer darkness, a row-boat, whit

orimondo," he gaspe

leasantly. "The Fiorim

I leave it f

faded old blue eyes

a kind of vague plaintiveness; "and of course y

us as mathematics,

an expression she was somewhat apt to assume when her mood was a teasing one; and it generally had the effect of breaking down the Commendator

seen-the seaports of Bohemia, the mountains of Thule, which I have often seen from a distance, in the mists on the horizon. The Fiorimondo takes me as far as Veni

seemingly all innocence, persuasiveness, tender appeal for approbation,

gh with manifest reluctance; a

d be angry with you. This is scarcely

o cover a weary little yawn. "But there 's no mystification. There 's

dering something. Then, all at once, the lines of

orange-trees, where the oranges hung, amid the dark foliage, like dull-burning lanterns. A crescent of diamonds twinkled in the warm blackness of her hair. She wore a collar of pearls round her throat, and a long rope of pearls that descended to her waist, and was then looped up and caught at the bosom by an opal clasp. A delicate perfume, like the perfume of violets,

n't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are never starting for Venice in a b

s. So-you see. Oh, and by the bye," she interjected, "Serafino also is coming with me. He'll act as courier-buy my tickets, register my luggage; and then, when we reach our ultimate destination, resume his white cap and apron. My ultimate destination, you mu

eties had revived. This tim

d!" he ej

there was the climax of horrified ast

r, if you are not mad, you are the

darkened, pat

o? I 'm going to Craford to realise the aspiration of a lifetime. I 'm going to find out my cousin, and make his acquaintance, and see what he 's like. And then-well, if he 's nice, who knows what may happ

eseeching his indulgence, yet still, with a littl

e air, his foot t

on. "Fine words, fine words. And you made all your preparations b

shook his bony old fist at

rved even by the free and independent? It is not decent for you to travel alone. If y

ruelly. She 's always putting spokes in my wheel, and I 'm always saying and doing things she disa

ith profound

I 've only waited for this blessed day of liberty to cut adrift from the Baronessa. And the pleasure will be mutual, I promise

ders a little shak

"I gave orders that the launch was to start off the moment she put her foot aboard it, and on no account was it to turn back, and on no account wa

ted, and became confi

he Saints and the fashion papers. I 've had to do all my really important reading by stealth, like a thief in the night. Ah," she sighed, "if I were only a man, like you! But as for observing the decencies," she continued briskly, "you need have no fear. I 'm going to the land of all lands where (if report speaks true) one has most opportunities of observing them-I 'm going to England, and I 'll observe them with both eyes. And I 'm not travelling alone." She spurned the imputation. "There are Rosina and Serafi

d forwards, being, I suppose, too punctilious an o

yden, a young tom-boy. What? You will travel from here to London without a chaperon? And books-French novels-gr-r-r! I wish you had never been taught to read. I t

ands, as one i

mere"-he paused, groping for an adequate definition-"a mere ir

drew her

"A mere child? I? Good g

ive them weight, and in all good faith I

years-a?e, Dio mio! And I look even older. I could pass for twenty-five. If," was her suddenly-inspired conce

ose melting eyes, and her

three of the best years of my life for-and it is

, and stood in an attit

ould it ever occur to you that I 'm what you call 'a young girl'? Would n't you go about enquiri

he drollest of lit

undulating abundant hair, the sudden, sanguine red of her lips,-I think you would have taken her for more than twenty-two. There was nothing of the immature or the unfinished, nothing of the tentative, in her aspect. With no loss of freshness, there were the strength, the poise, the assurance, that we are wont to associate with a riper womanhood. Whether she looked twenty-five or

ared fiercely at her-as fiercely as it was in his mild old eyes to glare. He hel

estion. Are you or are you not the Coun

na was in

at nurse," she assented, dropping a cu

proposing-which would be disgraceful enough if you were any little obscure bourgeoise-must precipitate a public scandal? Have you reflected that it will all be printed in the newspapers, for men to snigger at in their cafe

er eyebrows, in

you see, that my cousin Antonio should never dream who I really am. He must fancy that I 'm just anybody-till the time comes for me to cast my domino, and reve

an instant's irresolution, and mark

e to take my name as a cloak for your escapades? I

he nodded his outra

was indeed i

are. Never mind, though," she said, with gay resignation. "I 'll call myself something el

a mountain, a bare, white, tower-like peak of rock, that rises in the middle of the

ptu, Torrebianca is n't bad. It's picturesque, and high-sounding, and yet not-not invraisemblable. You don't th

f it were a goblet from which to quaf

ess imprecations in his moustache. One caugh

tly, "kiss me on both cheeks,

rds him, and h

e dre

lore. I implore you not to do this fantastic, this incredible, this unheard-of thing. I will go on my knees to you. I will entreat you, not for my sake, but for your own sake, for the sake of your dead father and mother, to put this ruinous vagary from y

s eyes melted, but there

s there to do? I can't alter my resolution. And I can't bear to refuse you when you talk

the quay, and sprang

rowers, who instantly pushed the b

er disfranchised

re. I 'll write to