Glear quite enough to pass for an encouraging
flirtation, and to lead all around her to think their engagement
immediately coming on. The only thing she refused to do was to go to
the Farnese Palace, where was the statue to which there had more than
once been comparisons made. At last, one day, when they were going
over the Vatican Galleries, everyone was startled by a strange peal
of laughter, and before a frieze of the Labours of Hercules stood
Pigou, looking pale and frightened, and trying to get Viola away, as
she stood pointing to the carrying home of the Erymanthian boar, and
laughing in this wild forced way. They got her away at last, but
Piggy told his father that he would have no more to do with her, even
if their uncle left her half his property, though he never would tell
what she had said to him.
Since that time she had gone on in this excited state, apparently
scarcely eating or sleeping, talking incessantly, not irrationally,
but altogether at random, mockingly and in contradiction to everyone;
caring chiefly to do the very thing her mother did not wish, never
resting, and apparently with untiring vigour, though her cheeks and
hands were burning, and she was wasting away from day to day.
Lady Diana really thought her mind was going, and by this time would
have given all she had in the world to have been able to call Harold
back to her.
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