"I really cannot tell you, madame," I said, with an air of affected concern and vexation. "I certainly told the countess of the unexpected death of a friend, but she bore the news with exemplary resignation. The circumstance that appears to have so greatly distressed her is that she finds, or says she finds, a resemblance between my hand and the hand of her deceased husband. This seems to me absurd, but there is no accounting for ladies' caprices."
And I shrugged my shoulders as though I were annoyed and impatient.
Over the pale, serious face of the nun there flitted a smile in which there was certainly the ghost of sarcasm.
"All sensitiveness and tenderness of heart, you see!" she said, in her chill, passionless tones, which, icy as they were, somehow conveyed to my ear another meaning than that implied by the words she uttered. "We cannot perhaps understand the extreme delicacy of her feelings, and we fail to do justice to them."
Here Nina opened her eyes, and looked at us with piteous plaintiveness, while her bosom heaved with those long, deep sighs which are the finishing chords of the Sonata Hysteria.
"You are better, I trust?" continued the nun, without any sympathy in her monotonous accents, and addressing her with some reserve. "You have greatly alarmed the Count Oliva."
"I am sorry--" began Nina, feebly.
I hastened to her side.
"Pray do not speak of it!" I urged, forcing something like a lover's ardor into my voice. "I regret beyond measure that it is my misfortune to have hands like those of your late husband! I assure you I am quite miserable about it. Can you forgive me?"
She was recovering quickly, and she was evidently conscious that she had behaved somewhat foolishly. She smiled a weak pale smile; but she looked very scared, worn and ill. She rose from her chair slowly and languidly.
"I think I will go to my room," she said, not regarding Mere Marguerite, who had withdrawn to a little distance, and who stood rigidly erect, immovably featured, with her silver crucifix glittering coldly on her still breast.
"Good-bye, Cesare! Please forget my stupidity, and write to me from Avellino."
I took her outstretched hand, and bowing over it, touched it gently with my lips. She turned toward the door, when suddenly a mischievous idea seemed to enter her mind. She looked at Madame la Vicaire and then came back to me.
"Addio, amor mio!" she said, with a sort of rapturous emphasis, and throwing her arms round my neck she kissed me almost passionately.