THE IVORY TOWER
though ever so secretly—you see I speak of it only now—and I want to believe so in his impression. But how I torment you!" she suddenly said in another tone.
Rosanna, nursing her patience, had a sad slow headshake. "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't—and yet it's too beautiful. It was about Gray—once when we talked of him, as I've told you we repeatedly did. It was that he never would look at anyone else."
Our friend could but appear at least to cast about. "Anyone else than whom?"
"Why than you," Cissy smiled. "The girl he had loved in boyhood. The American girl who, years before, in Dresden, had done for him something he could never forget."
"And what had she done?" stared Rosanna.
"Oh he didn't tell me that! But if you don't take great care, as I say," Cissy went on, "perhaps he may—I mean Mr. Fielder himself may when we close round him in the way that, in your place, as I assure you, I would certainly do everything to prevent."
Rosanna looked about as with a sudden sense of weakness, the effect of overstrain; it was absurd, but these last minutes might almost, with their queer action, and as to the ground they covered, have been as many formidable days. A fine verandah settee again close at hand offered her support, and she dropped upon it, as for large retrieval of
65
