This gave her
a secret grudge against him, a feeling that it was not she who was to
blame.
Pride was Bianca's fate, her flavour, and her charm. Like a shadowy
hill-side behind glamorous bars of waning sunlight, she was enveloped
in smiling pride--mysterious; one thinks, even to herself. This pride
of hers took part even in her many generous impulses, kind actions which
she did rather secretly and scoffed at herself for doing. She scoffed at
herself continually, even for putting on dresses of colours which Hilary
was fond of. She would not admit her longing to attract him.
Standing between those two pictures, pressing her mahl-stick against her
bosom, she suggested somewhat the image of an Italian saint forcing the
dagger of martyrdom into her heart.
That other person, who had once brought the thought of Italy into
Cecilia's mind--the man Hughs--had been for the last eight hours or so
walking the streets, placing in a cart the refuses of Life; nor had he
at all suggested the aspect of one tortured by the passions of love and
hate: For the first two hours he had led the horse without expression
of any sort on his dark face, his neat soldier's figure garbed in
the costume which had made "Westminister" describe him as a "dreadful
foreign-lookin' man." Now and then he had spoken to the horse; save for
those speeches, of no great importance, he had been silent.
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