During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the quarter where I sat, or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual, but I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his lips. I kept my ear and mind in perpetual readiness for the tender theme; my patience was ordered to be permanently¹ under arms, and my sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia² replenished³ and ready for outpouring. At last, and after a little inward struggle, which I saw and respected, he one day launched into the topic. It was introduced delicately; anonymously⁴ as it were.

“Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?”

“Friend, forsooth!” thought I to myself: but it would not do to contradict; he must have his own way; I must own the soft impeachment⁵: friend let it be. Still, by way of experiment, I could not help asking whom he meant?

He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind.

“Ginevra — Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour through the south of France?”

“She has.”

“Do you and she correspond?”

“It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making application for that privilege.”

“You have seen letters of her writing?”

“Yes; several to her uncle.”

“They will not be deficient⁶ in wit and na?veté; there is so much sparkle, and so little art in her soul?”

“She writes comprehensively enough when she writes to M. de Bassompierre: he who runs may read.” (In fact, Ginevra’s epistles to her wealthy kinsman⁷ were commonly business documents, unequivocal applications for cash.)

分享到：