Now the truth was that Ludovico often did doubt very much whether
Paolina really loved him. He did not understand the position in
which they stood towards each other at all. Here was a little
utterly unpretending artist, dependent on no one but herself, owing
no duty to any one, to whom he had been making love for the last
eight months, as he had never in his life made love before, who
assured him that she loved him; how was it that she had not been his
mistress months and months ago? How to account for so strange a
phenomenon? He knew very well, that if the exact truth of his
position with regard to the little Venetian artist were known or
guessed at by any of the men with whom he lived, he would have
appeared to them an object of the utmost ridicule,--a dupe,--a fool
of the very first water. What on earth could he have been about all
the time?
And there were moments in which he was tempted to think the same of
himself; bitter moments of cynical world-wisdom, in which he scoffed
at himself for having been led to play the part he had played for
these last eight months. He would resolve at such moments to "speak
plainly" to Paolina; and, if such plain-speaking failed of the
effect it was intended to produce, to put her out of his mind and
never waste a minute or a thought upon her again.
But such plain-speaking had never got itself spoken,--had seemed,
when he was in presence of the intended object of it, utterly
impossible to be spoken.
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