Tita

“ Tita suddenly feels very cold, chilled to her heart's core. She had listened so far as if stunned; but now she wakes, and the face of Marian Bethune seems to look with a cold sneer into hers.
"And after that," goes on Hescott, "if—if——" He breaks down.
"Well, if that comes, you know I—love you, Tita."
He tries to take her hand.
"Don't touch me!" says Tita vehemently. She pushes his hand from her; such a disdainful little push. "Oh, I thought you really did love me," says she, "but not like this!" Suddenly a sort of rage and of anger springs to life within her. ”

“ We sat down at last in the crowded circle at Florian’s, finding an unoccupied table among those that were ranged in the square. It was a splendid night and all the world was out-of-doors; Miss Tita could not have wished the elements more auspicious for her return to society. I saw that she enjoyed it even more than she told; she was agitated with the multitude of her impressions. She had forgotten what an attractive thing the world is, and it was coming over her that somehow she had for the best years of her life been cheated of it. ”

“ When one loves a thing, one speaks of it. Don't you love your bath?" asks Tita.
Lady Rylton sits glaring at her, as if too horrified to go on. Tita continues:
"If you don't, you ought, you know," says she.
"You must be out of your mind to talk to me like this," says Lady Rylton at last. Something in the girl's air tells her that there is some little touch of devilment in it, some anger, some hatred. "But, naturally, I make allowances for you. ”

“ She has knelt down beside him to look at his list, and suddenly he lays his palm under her chin, and so lifts her face that he can see it.
"What is it, Tita?" says he. "Is anything troubling you? Last night you were so silent; to-day you talk. It is bad to be unequal."
His tone is grave.
"The night before last I had a bad dream," says Tita solemnly, turning her head a little to one side, and giving him a slight glance that lasts for the tiniest fraction of a second.
It occurs to Rylton that there is a little touch of wickedness in it. At all events, he grows interested. ”

“ How can she walk? How can she arrive at that sort of muscular exertion? How can she lift and carry things?”
“Oh, when one wants and when one has so much will!” said Miss Tita, as if she had thought over my question already herself and had simply had no choice but that answer—the idea that in the dead of night, or at some moment when the coast was clear, the old woman had been capable of a miraculous effort.
“Have you questioned Olimpia? Hasn’t she helped her—hasn’t she done it for her?” ”

“ You know very little of Society if you think you will be tolerated there."
"I know nothing of Society," returns Tita, now very pale, "and perhaps you will understand me when I say that I never want to know anything. If Society means people who tell hateful, unkind stories of a husband to his wife, I think I am very well out of it."
"That is a little censure upon poor me, I suppose," says Lady Rylton with a difficult smile. She looks at Tita. Evidently she expects Tita to sink into the ground beneath that austere regard, but Tita comes up smiling. ”

“ Tita's feet are beyond argument, and there is not a woman in this world, any way, who has beautiful feet, who doesn't want everyone to tell her all about them.
"No, no; they're nothing," says she, making a pretence of tucking up the much-maligned feet in question under her frock, which basely fails to help her.
But even as she says this she smiles—reluctantly, no doubt; but, still, she does smile—and casts a glance at Rylton from under her long lashes. It is a delightful look—half pleased, half defiant, wholly sweet.
"Forgive me, Tita!" says her husband quickly. ”

“ As she draws closer to him, he fixes his eyes upon her as if to compel a glance from her in return; but Tita, who is accompanied by Minnie Hescott, does not so much as once let her gaze wander in his direction. ”

“ They are distressingly rare.”
“A portrait? I don’t know,” said Miss Tita; and now there was discomfiture in her face. “Well, good night!” she added; and she turned into the house.
I accompanied her into the wide, dusky, stone-paved passage which on the ground floor corresponded with our grand sala. It opened at one end into the garden, at the other upon the canal, and was lighted now only by the small lamp that was always left for me to take up as I went to bed. An extinguished candle which Miss Tita apparently had brought down with her stood on the same table with it. ”

“ Miss Tita after a moment noticed the direction of my eyes again and, as if she guessed how I judged the air of the place (forgetting I had no business to judge it at all) , said, perhaps to defend herself from the imputation of complicity in such untidiness:
“She likes it this way; we can’t move things. ”

“ The man who listened turned his head with a movement of physical pain, as Tita went on, resentfully:
“And she is a Gamba, born to be a great lady! If she left him, he would bring her back, unless she went from Italy. And who is to help her do that? Her brother is in another land. Her father is sick and she will not tell him anything. There is none but me in Casa Guiccioli who does not serve the signore too well! ”

“ Juliana, on summer nights in her youth, might have murmured down from open windows at Jeffrey Aspern, but Miss Tita was not a poet’s mistress any more than I was a poet. This however did not prevent my gratification from being great as I became aware on reaching the end of the garden that Miss Tita was seated in my little bower. At first I only made out an indistinct figure, not in the least counting on such an overture from one of my hostesses; it even occurred to me that some sentimental maidservant had stolen in to keep a tryst with her sweetheart. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIX. How a Journey is begun as the Day dies down; and how that Journey ends; and how a great Secret is discovered—the Secret of Tita's Heart
THE HOYDEN. CHAPTER I. HOW MINNIE HESCOTT GIVES TITA A HINT; AND LEARNS THAT HINTS MAY BE THROWN AWAY; AND HOW MARGARET'S SOUL IS GRIEVED. Minnie Hescott, during the time it takes her to go down the terrace steps behind Tita, comes to a resolution. She will give Tita a hint! It will be a gift of no mean order, and whether it be well received or not, will always be a gift to be remembered, perhaps with gratitude. ”

“ Where's Colonel Neilson? Where's Margaret?"
"They changed," says Mr. Gower mendaciously. "Miss Hescott and I are upon the track; we are the bloodhounds—we," making another grab at her soft gown, "have got you!"
"No, you haven't," says Tita, whereupon there ensues a very animated chase round and round the screen, Tita at last finding shelter—of all places—behind her husband—behind Maurice, whose face it is quite as well she cannot see.
He makes a movement as if to go, but she catches him, and unless he were to use violence he could hardly get away. ”

“ Go—go away!"
"Do not send me from you like this," entreats Rylton, in a voice that trembles. Her tears cut him to the heart. He is so close to her that he has only to put out his hand to catch her—to take her to him, and yet——"Think, Tita! We have got to live out our lives, whether we like it or not. Can we not live them out together?"
"We cannot," says Tita, in a low but distinct voice. She turns to him proudly. "Have you forgotten?" says she. Her poor little face is stained with tears, but he sees no disfigurement in it ”

“ So you ought to be," says Lady Rylton, unmoved even by that pathetic face before her.
Tita turns upon her. All at once the old spirit springs to life within the poor child's breast.
"No, for myself!" cries she, with a bitterness hardly to be described.
CHAPTER XI. HOW TITA GOES FOR A WALK WITH TWO SAD COMPANIONS—ANGER AND DESPAIR; AND HOW SHE MEETS SIR MAURICE; AND HOW SHE INTRODUCES HIM TO ANGER. Escaping from her mother-in-law's room, Tita goes hurriedly, carefully downstairs. There is no one in the smaller hall ”

“ After that first cry, in which her whole being had sounded its terror, she had not spoken. Now she turned to Tita, who stood dumfounded.
“Tita, quickly! You and I must help his lordship to the road. He is wounded.”
“Teresa,”—Gordon sought for words through the [291] dizziness that was engulfing him,—“leave me. My horse is in the edge of the forest. At Bologna I shall find a surgeon.”
“You cannot ride. It would kill you. My carriage is near the convent gate.”
He shook his head. “You have risked enough for me. Tita,—”
“He can bring the horse around,” she answered. “Come!” ”

“ Rylton has turned the corner of it, and found Tita with Tom Hescott crouching behind it, whispering together, and evidently enjoying themselves immensely.
As she sees him, Tita gives a little cry. She had plainly taken him for one of the hunters, and had hoped he would pass by.
"Oh, you!" cries she. "You! Go away. Go at once! They'll find us if——"
She waves him frantically from her. He is too angry to see that there is not a vestige of embarrassment in her air.
Here Gower comes up panting. ”

“ Garden water-gates seldom swung in Venice at night. For a moment he watched. “Some servant’s errand,” he reflected, and leaned back on the cushions.
In the orchid-scented garden, Tita’s brawny arms lifted Teresa out and set her upon the marble steps. He was thinking of the Englishman.
“Illustrissima!” he whispered. “Shall I kill him?”
Then something broke in Teresa’s breast. She clasped the broad neck, sobbing:
“No, no, Tita! Dear Tita! Not that! I would rather die myself!”
[218] CHAPTER XXX
THE PEACE OF PADRE SOMALIAN
All night Gordon’s gondola floated over the dark lagoon. ”

“ It was scarcely to be wondered that the Donna Maria Sepulvida, who was returning from a visit to her steward and major-domo, attended by a single vaquero, should have thrown the reins forward on the neck of her yellow mare, "Tita," and dashed at a wild gallop down the white strip of beach that curved from the garden wall of the Mission to the Point of Pines, a league beyond. ”

“ Now my Titania wake you my sweet Queene
Tita. My Oberon, what visions haue I seene!
Me-thought I was enamoured of an asse
Ob. There lies your loue
Tita. How came these things to passe?
Oh, how mine eyes doth loath this visage now!
Ob. Silence a while. Robin take off his head:
Titania, musick call, and strike more dead
Then common sleepe; of all these, fine the sense
Tita. Musicke, ho musicke, such as charmeth sleepe.
Musick still.
Rob. When thou wak'st, with thine owne fooles eies
peepe
Ob. ”

“ Is anyone to be trusted? He had put his faith in Tita; he had thought her wild, perhaps a little unmanageable, but—yes, he had thought her lovable; there had been moments when——
And now it had all come to this, that she had deceived him—is wilfully deceiving him.
He does not even in this, his angry hour, accuse her of more than a well-developed flirtation with her cousin; but that is the beginning of an end that he will put a stop to at once, and for ever. He will show her who is her master. If she cannot respect herself, he will, at all events, take care that she respects his name ”

“ Also English people—the Churtons and the Goldies and Mrs. Stock-Stock, whom they had loved dearly; she was dead and gone, poor dear. That was the case with most of their pleasant circle (this expression was Miss Tita’s own) , though a few were left, which was a wonder considering how they had neglected them. She mentioned the names of two or three Venetian old women; of a certain doctor, very clever, who was so kind—he came as a friend, he had really given up practice; of the avvocato Pochintesta, who wrote beautiful poems and had addressed one to her aunt. ”

“ CHAPTER XV. How Tita tells of two strange Dreams, and of how they moved her. And how Maurice sets his Soul on asking a Guest to Oakdean; and how he gains his Desire
CHAPTER XVI. How a dull Morning gives Birth to a strange Afternoon. And how
Rylton's Eyes are widened by a Friend
CHAPTER XVII. How Tita suggests a Game of Blind Man's Buff, and what comes of it
CHAPTER XVIII. How Tita gets a Scolding, and how she rebels and accuses Sir Maurice of Breach of Contract
CHAPTER XIX. How Rylton's Heart condemns him. And how, as he walks, a Serpent stings him. And how he is recovered of his Wound. ”

“ Oh, Margaret! Oh! what shall I do? If I go out there I shall meet him face to face. Oh! why do people build rooms with only one door in them? I'm undone." She glances wildly round her, and in the far distance of this big drawing-room espies a screen. "That," gasps she, "that will do! I'll hide myself behind that. Don't keep him long, Meg darling! Hurry him off. Say you've got the cholera—any little thing like that—and get rid of him."
"Tita—you can't. It is impossible. ”

“ Chichester, I don't think——"
"That's right," says she, rising and slipping her arm into his. "Never think; it's about the most foolish thing anyone can do. _I _never think. I only wait; waiting is full of promise."
CHAPTER XXII. HOW RYLTON ASKS HIS WIFE TO TREAD A MEASURE WITH HIM, AND HOW THE FATES WEAVE A LITTLE MESH FOR TITA'S PRETTY FEET. "Will you give me this dance, Tita?" asks Sir Maurice, going up to his wife.
Tita is standing in a recess near the window. The window is wide open, and filled at each corner with giant ferns in pots. ”

“ Tessa clung fast to Tito's arm in satisfied silence, while he led her towards the stall where he remembered seeing the eatables. Their way was the easier because there was just now a great rush towards the middle of the piazza, where the masqued figures on stilts had found space to execute a dance. It was very pretty to see the guileless thing giving her cocoons into Tito's hand, and then eating her berlingozzi with the relish of a hungry child. Tito had really come to take care of her, as he did before, and that wonderful happiness of being with him had begun again for her. ”