And as for the other alternative, he knew
at the bottom of his heart, that it was as much out of his power to
put it in practice, as it was to forget his own identity.
Something there was in the girl different from anything he had ever
known in any other specimen of the sex he had ever become acquainted
with. Something too there unmistakably was in his feeling towards
her very different from aught that he had ever felt before. What
spell had come over him? And what the deuce was the nature of her
power over him? And what the deuce was her own meaning, and feeling,
and the motives of her conduct?
It really was necessary, however, that they should in some way come
to understand each other. If he had been becoming for some time past
discontented with the state of matters between them, it was evident
that Paolina had been becoming ill at ease and unhappy also. In some
fashion or other some more or less plain speaking was evidently
needed.
And Paolina herself? What was her feeling on the subject? Whence did
her unmistakable malaise, distraught behaviour in Ludovico's
presence, paling cheeks, hours of reverie, when she should have been
busily at work--whence did all this come? What was really in her
mind when she told him that doubtless they both loved each other,
and then ended her words with a "but," and a sad shake of her
drooping little head?
She had found this man, her first acquaintance, in a strange land,
good-natured, pleasant, kind, useful, handsome, protecting and, at
the same time, deferential in his manner; and she had liked him.
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