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Page 13
"Then how old is he?"
"Oh, quite young. Twenty-one, I believe."
There burst from Philip the exclamation, "Good Lord!"
"One would never believe it," said Miss Abbott,
flushing. "He looks much older."
"And is he good-looking?" he asked, with gathering sarcasm.
She became decisive. "Very good-looking. All his
features are good, and he is well built--though I dare say
English standards would find him too short."
Philip, whose one physical advantage was his height,
felt annoyed at her implied indifference to it.
"May I conclude that you like him?"
She replied decisively again, "As far as I have seen
him, I do."
At that moment the carriage entered a little wood, which
lay brown and sombre across the cultivated hill. The trees
of the wood were small and leafless, but noticeable for
this--that their stems stood in violets as rocks stand in the
summer sea. There are such violets in England, but not so
many. Nor are there so many in Art, for no painter has the
courage. The cart-ruts were channels, the hollow lagoons;
even the dry white margin of the road was splashed, like a
causeway soon to be submerged under the advancing tide of
spring. Philip paid no attention at the time: he was
thinking what to say next. But his eyes had registered the
beauty, and next March he did not forget that the road to
Monteriano must traverse innumerable flowers.
"As far as I have seen him, I do like him," repeated
Miss Abbott, after a pause.
He thought she sounded a little defiant, and crushed her
at once.
"What is he, please? You haven't told me that. What's
his position?"
She opened her mouth to speak, and no sound came from
it. Philip waited patiently. She tried to be audacious,
and failed pitiably.
"No position at all. He is kicking his heels, as my
father would say. You see, he has only just finished his
military service."
"As a private?"
"I suppose so. There is general conscription. He was
in the Bersaglieri, I think. Isn't that the crack regiment?"
"The men in it must be short and broad. They must also
be able to walk six miles an hour."
She looked at him wildly, not understanding all that he
said, but feeling that he was very clever. Then she
continued her defence of Signor Carella.
"And now, like most young men, he is looking out for
something to do."
"Meanwhile?"
"Meanwhile, like most young men, he lives with his
people--father, mother, two sisters, and a tiny tot of a brother."
There was a grating sprightliness about her that drove
him nearly mad. He determined to silence her at last.
"One more question, and only one more. What is his father?"
"His father," said Miss Abbott. "Well, I don't suppose
you'll think it a good match. But that's not the point. I
mean the point is not--I mean that social differences--love,
after all--not but what--I--"
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