Christina shrugged her shoulders.  “Every one expects me to go into ecstacies over that!  Could anything be more vulgar?  They may chuckle by themselves!  Will you let me stay to dinner?”

“If you can dine on a risotto.  But I imagine you are expected at home.”

“You are right.  Prince Casamassima dines there, en famille.  But I ’m not in his family, yet!”

“Do you know you are very wicked?  I have half a mind not to keep you.”

Christina dropped her eyes, reflectively.  “I beg you will let me stay,” she said.  “If you wish to cure me of my wickedness you must be very patient and kind with me.  It will be worth the trouble.  You must show confidence in me.”  And she gave another glance at Rowland.  Then suddenly, in a different tone, “I don’t know what I ’m saying!” she cried.  “I am weary, I am more lonely than ever, I wish I were dead!” The tears rose to her eyes, she struggled with them an instant, and buried her face in her muff; but at last she burst into uncontrollable sobs and flung her arms upon Madame Grandoni’s neck.  This shrewd woman gave Rowland a significant nod, and a little shrug, over the young girl’s beautiful bowed head, and then led Christina tenderly away into the adjoining room.  Rowland, left alone, stood there for an instant, intolerably puzzled, face to face with Miss Light’s poodle, who had set up a sharp, unearthly cry of sympathy with his mistress.  Rowland vented his confusion in dealing a rap with his stick at the animal’s unmelodious muzzle, and then rapidly left the house.  He saw Mrs. Light’s carriage waiting at the door, and heard afterwards that Christina went home to dinner.

A couple of days later he went, for a fortnight, to Florence.  He had twenty minds to leave Italy altogether; and at Florence he could at least more freely decide upon his future movements.  He felt profoundly, incurably disgusted.  Reflective benevolence stood prudently aside, and for the time touched the source of his irritation with no softening side-lights.

It was the middle of March, and by the middle of March in Florence the spring is already warm and deep.  He had an infinite relish for the place and the season, but as he strolled by the Arno and paused here and there in the great galleries, they failed to soothe his irritation.  He was sore at heart, and as the days went by the soreness deepened rather than healed.  He felt as if he had a complaint against fortune; good-natured as he was, his good-nature this time quite declined to let it pass.  He had tried to be wise, he had tried to be kind, he had embarked upon an estimable enterprise; but his wisdom, his kindness, his energy, had been thrown back in his face.  He was disappointed, and his disappointment had an angry spark in it.  The sense of wasted time, of wasted hope and faith, kept him constant company.  There were times when the beautiful things about him only exasperated his discontent.  He went to the Pitti Palace, and Raphael’s Madonna