"
"I have not come to scold you for gambling, if that is what you mean,"
the cure said mildly. "Angelo has told me nothing. Nobody sent me to
you. I have to reproach you for something quite different. I have seen
Miss Grant, Principino. How you could suspect for a moment that there
was anything but a pure soul behind those eyes, I cannot understand."
Vanno grew pale. He was obliged to be silent for an instant, in defence
of his self-control. "I know very little of women's eyes, and of their
souls nothing at all," he answered, harshly.
"So much the better, perhaps, because you can learn only good of the sex
from Miss Grant's," said the cure.
"She will let me learn no lesson from her--unless, that there is no
forgiveness for one mistake."
"That is because she cared so much that you hurt her cruelly. She did
not tell me so, though we have spoken of you, but I saw how it was.
There is no question of a mistake this time. And when you have talked
together in my garden to-morrow afternoon, she will forgive and
understand everything."
"Is she going to your place?"
"At three o'clock she will be there. You had better come a little
earlier."
"I shall not come at all," Vanno blazed out, with violence. "She
believes already that I've persecuted her. I won't give her reason to
think it."
"Poor child, she is very unhappy," the cure sighed, meekly.
"At least, it isn't I who have made her so."
"Perhaps it is herself, and that is sadder--to have only herself to
blame.
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