He was at once placed upon his guard, telling himself
that he saw the necessity of holding by his child.
How could he tell? Might there not be policemen
down from Florence, ready round the house, to seize
the boy and carry him away. Though all his remaining
life should be a torment to him, though infinite plagues
should be poured upon his head, though he should die
like a dog, alone, unfriended, and in despair, while
he was fighting this battle of his, he would not give
way. ’That is sufficient,’ he said.
‘Louey must return now to his own chamber.’
‘I may go with him?’
’No, Emily. You cannot go with him now.
I will thank you to release him, that I may take him.’
She still held the little fellow closely pressed in
her arms. ’Do not reward me for my courtesy
by further disobedience,’ he said.
‘You will let me come again?’ To this
he made no reply. ’Tell me that I may come
again.’
‘I do not think that I shall remain here long.’
‘And I may not stay now?’
‘That would be impossible. There is no
accommodation for you.’
‘I could sleep on the boards beside his cot,’
said Mrs Trevelyan.
‘That is my place,’ he replied. ’You
may know that he is not disregarded. With my
own hands I tend him every morning. I take him
out myself. I feed him myself. He says his
prayers to me. He learns from me, and can say
his letters nicely. You need not fear for him.
No mother was ever more tender with her child than
I am with him.’ Then he gently withdrew
the boy from her arms, and she let her child go, lest
he should learn to know that there was a quarrel between
his father and his mother. ‘If you will
excuse me,’ he said, ’I will not come down
to you again today. My servant will see you to
your carriage.’
So he left her; and she, with an Italian girl at her
heels, got into her vehicle, and was taken back to
Siena. There she passed the night alone at the
inn, and on the next morning returned to Florence by
the railway.
‘Will they despise him?’
Gradually the news of the intended marriage between
Mr Glascock and Miss Spalding spread itself over Florence,
and people talked about it with that energy which
subjects of such moment certainly deserve. That
Caroline Spalding had achieved a very great triumph,
was, of course, the verdict of all men and of all
women; and I fear that there was a corresponding feeling
that poor Mr Glascock had been triumphed over, and,
as it were, subjugated. In some respects he had
been remiss in his duties as a bachelor visitor to
Florence, as a visitor to Florence who had manifestly
been much in want of a wife. He had not given
other girls a fair chance, but had thrown himself
down at the feet of this American female in the weakest
possible manner. And then it got about the town
that he had been refused over and over again by Nora
