CONFIDENCE
but on perceiving that her daughter had gone outside she came towards Bernard again, with her habitual little air of eagerness mitigated by discretion. There instantly rose before his mind the vision of that moment when he had stood face to face with this same apologetic mamma, after Angela had turned her back, on the grass-grown terrace at Siena. To make the vision complete, Mrs. Vivian took it into her head to utter the same words.
"I am sure you think she is a strange girl."
Bernard recognised them, and he gave a light laugh.
"You told me that the first time you ever saw me—in that quiet little corner of an Italian town."
Mrs. Vivian gave a little faded, elderly blush.
"Don't speak of that," she murmured, glancing at the open window. "It was a little accident of travel."
"I am dying to speak of it," said Bernard. "It was such a charming accident for me! Tell me this, at least—have you kept my sketch?"
Mrs. Vivian coloured more deeply, and glanced at the window again.
"No," she just whispered.
Bernard looked out of the window too. Angela was leaning against the railing of the balcony, in profile, just as she had stood, while he painted her, against the polished parapet at Siena. The young man's eyes rested on her a moment, then, as he glanced back at her mother—
"Has she kept it?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Vivian, with decision.
The decision was excessive—it expressed the poor lady's distress at having her veracity tested. "Dear little daughter of the Puritans—she can't tell a fib!" Bernard exclaimed to himself. And with this flattering conclusion he took leave of her.
89
