Read Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 for Free Online Page B

him, and that Georgina had put him to nurse with Italian peasants; but that, if he would kindly consent to it, she, Mrs. Portico, would bring him up much better than that. She knew not how to address her letter, and Georgina, even if she should know, which was doubtful, would never tell her; so she

 

Page 28
sent the missive to the care of the Secretary of the Navy, at Washington, with an earnest request that it might immediately be forwarded. Such was Mrs. Portico's last effort in this strange business of Georgina's. I relate rather a complicated fact in a very few words when I say that the poor lady's anxieties, indignations, repentances, preyed upon her until they fairly broke her down. Various persons whom she knew in Rome notified her that the air of the Seven Hills was plainly unfavourable to her; and she had made up her mind to return to her native land when she found that, in her depressed condition, malarial fever had laid its hand upon her. She was unable to move, and the matter was settled for her in the course of an illness which, happily, was not prolonged. I have said that she was not obstinate, and the resistance she made on the present occasion was not worthy even of her spasmodic energy. Brain-fever made its appearance, and she died at the end of three weeks, during which Georgina's attentions to her patient and protectress had been unremitting. There were other Americans in Rome who, after this sad event, extended to the bereaved young lady every comfort and hospitality. She had no lack of opportunities for returning under a proper escort to New York. She selected, you may be sure, the best, and re-entered her father's house, where she took to plain dressing; for she sent all her pocket-money, with the utmost secrecy, to the little boy in the Genoese hills.
VIII.
Why should he come if he doesn't like you? He is under no obligation, and he has his ship to look after. Why should he sit for an hour at a time, and why should he be so pleasant?
Do you think he is very pleasant? Kate Theory asked, turning away her face from her sister. It was important that Mildred should not see how little the expression of that charming countenance corresponded with the inquiry.
This precaution was useless, however, for in a moment Mildred said, from the delicately draped couch on which she lay at the open window, Kate Theory, don't be affected.
Perhaps it's for you he comes. I don't see why he shouldn't; you are far more attractive than I, and you have a

 

Page 29
great deal more to say. How can he help seeing that you are the cleverest of the clever? You can talk to him of everything: of the dates of the different eruptions, of the statues and bronzes in the museum, which you have never seen, poverina, but which you know more about than he does, than any one does. What was it you began on last time? Oh yes, you poured forth floods about Magna Græcia. And thenand then
But with this Kate Theory paused; she felt it wouldn't do to speak the words that had risen to her lips. That her sister was as beautiful as a saint, and as delicate and refined as an angelshe had been on the point of saying something of that sort. But Mildred's beauty and delicacy were the fairness of mortal disease, and to praise her for her refinement was just to remind her that she had the tenuity of a consumptive. So, after she had checked herself, the younger girlshe was younger only by a year or twosimply kissed her tenderly and settled the knot of the lace handkerchief that was tied over her head. Mildred knew what she had been going to say, knew why she had stopped. Mildred knew everything, without ever leaving her room, or leaving, at least, that little salon of their own, at the pension, which she had made so pretty by simply lying there, at the window that had the view of the bay and of Vesuvius, and telling Kate how to arrange and how to rearrange everything. Since it began to be plain that Mildred must spend her small remnant of years