It was the inevitable, and it was therefore already in nature tragic, before active tragedy took the stage. Yet Angela did not feel its presence, nor any presentiment of the future, when she bade Giovanni farewell ten days after he had first been to see her in Madame Bernard's apartment.
What she felt was just the common pain of parting that has been the lot of loving men and women since the beginning; it is not the less sharp because almost every one has felt it, but it is as useless to describe it as it would be to write a chapter about a bad toothache, a sick headache, or an attack of gout. Angela was a brave girl and set herself the task of bearing it quietly because it was a natural and healthy consequence of loving dearly. It was not like the wrench of saying good-bye to a lover on his way to meet almost certain death. She told herself, and Giovanni told her, that in all probability he was not going to encounter any danger worse than may chance in a day's hunting over a rough country or in a steeple-chase, and that the risk was certainly far less than that of fighting a duel in Italy, where duelling is not a farce as it is in some countries. He would come back within a few months, with considerable credit and the certainty of promotion; it was a hundred to one that he would, so that this was merely a common parting, to be borne without complaint. He thought so himself, and they consoled each other by making plans for their married life, which would be so much nearer when he came home.
Madame Bernard left them alone for an hour in the sitting-room and then came in to say good-bye to Giovanni herself, bringing Coco perched upon her wrist, but silent and well-behaved. Angela was pale, and perhaps her deep mourning made her look paler than she was, but her face was as quiet and collected as Giovanni's. He took leave of the governess almost affectionately.
'Take care of her, Madame,' he said, 'and write me some news of her now and then through the War Office. It may reach me, or it may not!'
He kissed Angela's hand, looked into her eyes silently for a moment, and went out.
'Marche! 'cré nom d'un nom!' screamed the parrot after him, as if he were going too slowly.
But this time Angela could not speak of him with her friend just after he was gone, and when Madame Bernard tried to talk of other things with the idea of diverting her attention, she went and shut herself up in her own room. It was distracting to know that he was still in Rome, and that until nearly midnight, when the train left for Naples, it would be possible to see him once more. If she had insisted, Madame Bernard would have consented to go with her in a cab to find him. It was hard to resist, as she sat by the window, listening to the distant sound of wheels in the street; it was the first great temptation she had ever felt in her life, and as she faced it she was surprised at its strength. But she would not yield. In her own gentle womanliness she found something she recognised but could not account for; was it possible that she had some strength of character, after all? Could it be that she inherited a little of that rigid will that had made her father so like her idea of a Puritan? He had always told her that she was weak, that she would be easily influenced by her surroundings, that her only hope must be to obtain Divine aid for her feeble, feminine nature. She had believed him, because he had taught her that she must, even in the smallest things, and this was a great one.