This consideration evidently was not without its effect. Giovanna raised herself lazily on her elbow and looked at him across the table. “You come,” said she, “and this ’Erbert.”
“Herbert!” said Everard, shading his head, “he is a sickly boy; and as for me--I have to pay my vows at other shrines,” he added with a laugh. But he found this conversation immensely entertaining, and went on representing the disadvantages of Whiteladies with more enjoyment than perhaps he had ever experienced in that place on a Sunday evening before. He went on till Giovanna pettishly bade him go. “At the least, it is comfortable,” she said. “Ah, go! It is very tranquil, there is no one to call to you with sharp voice like a knife, ‘Gi’vanna! tu dors!’ Go, I am going to sleep.”
I don’t suppose she meant him to take her at her word, for Giovanna was amused too, and found the young man’s company and his compliments, and that half-mocking, half-real mixture of homage and criticism, to be a pleasant variety. But Everard, partly because he had exhausted all he had got to say, partly lest he should be drawn on to say more, jumped up in a state of amusement and satisfaction with himself and his own cleverness which was very pleasant. “Since you send me away, I must obey,” he said; “Dormez, belle enchanteresse!” and with this, which he felt to be a very pretty speech indeed, he left the room more pleased with himself than ever. He had spent a most satisfactory evening, he had ascertained that the old man was to be bought off with money, and he had done his best to disgust the young woman with a dull English country-house; in short, he had done Miss Susan yeoman’s service, and amused himself at the same time. Everard was agreeably excited, and felt, after a few moments’ reflection over a cigar on the lawn, that he would like to do more. It was still early, for the Sunday dinner at Whiteladies, as in so many other respectable English houses, was an hour earlier than usual; and as he wandered round the house, he saw the light still shining in Miss Susan’s window. This decided him; he threw away the end of his cigar, and hastening up the great staircase three steps at once, hurried to Miss Susan’s door. “Come in,” she said faintly. Everard was as much a child of the house as Herbert and Reine, and had received many an admonition in that well-known chamber. He opened the door without hesitation. But there was something in the very atmosphere which he felt to daunt him as he went in.