It wont be for long, you see, little woman, Colin said, kissing away her tears in Regents Park, as well as he was able; it wont be for long, Minna; and then, when we meet again, I shall have come back a real sculptor. What a delightful meeting we shall have, Minna, and how awfully learned and clever youll have got by that time! I shall be half afraid to talk to you. But youll write to me every week, wont you, little woman? Youll promise me that? You must promise me to write to me every week, or at the very least every fortnight.
It was some little crumb of comfort to Minna that he wanted her to write to him so often. That showed at any rate that he really cared for her just ever such a tiny bit. She wiped her eyes again as she answered, Yes, Colin; Ill take great care never to miss writing to you.
Thats right, little woman. And look here, you mustnt mind my giving you them; theres stamps enough for Italy to last you for a whole twelvemonth fifty-two of them, Minna, so that it wont ever be any expense to you; and when those are gone, Ill send you some others.
Thank you, Colin, Minna said, taking them quite simply and naturally. And youll write to me, too, wont you, Colin?
My dear Minna! Why, of course I will. Who else on earth have I got to write to?
And you wont forget me, Colin?
Forget you, Minna! If ever I forget you, may my right hand forget her cunning and what more dreadful thing could a sculptor say by way of an imprecation than that, now!
Oh, Colin, dont! Dont say so! Suppose it was to come true, you know!
But I dont mean to forget you, Minna; so it wont come true. Little woman, I shall think of you always, and have your dear little gipsy face for ever before me. And now, Minna, this time we must really say good-bye. Im out beyond my time already. Just one more; thank you, darling. Goodbye, good-bye, Minna. Good-bye, dearest. One more. God bless you!
Good-bye, Colin. Good-bye, good-bye. Oh, Colin, my heart is breaking.
And when that night Minna lay awake in her own bare small room at prim Miss Woollacotts, she thought it all over once more, and argued the pros and cons of the whole question deliberately to herself with much trepidation. He called me dearest, she thought in her sad little mind, and he said hed never forget me; that looks very much as if he really loved me: but, then, he never asked me whether I loved him or not, and he never proposed to me no, Im quite sure he never proposed to me. I should have felt so much easier in my own mind if only before he went away hed properly proposed to me! And then she covered her head with the bed-clothes once more, and sobbed herself to sleep, to dream of Colin.
The very next evening, Colin was at Paris.
CHAPTER XVII. A LITTLE CLOUD LIKE A MANS HAND
At the Gare de Lyon, Colin put his master safely into his coupe-lit, and then wandered along the train looking out for a carriage into which he might install himself comfortably for the long journey. All the carriages, as on all French express trains, were first-class; and Colin soon picked one out for himself, with a vacant place next the window. He jumped in and took his seat; and in two minutes more the train was off, and he found himself, at last, beyond the possibility of a doubt, on his way to Rome.
Rome, Rome, Rome! how the very name seemed to bound and thrill through Colin Churchills inmost nature! He looked at the little book of coupon tickets which his master had given him; yes, there it was, as clear as daylight, Paris, P.L.M., à Rome; not a doubt about it. Rome, Rome, Rome! It had seemed a dream, a fancy, hitherto; and now it was just going to be converted into an actual living reality. He could hardly believe even now that he would ever get there. Would there be an accident at the summit level of the Mont Cenis tunnel, to prevent his ever reaching the goal of his ambition? It almost seemed as if there must be some hitch somewhere, for the idea of actually getting to Rome that Rome that Cicolari had long ago told him was the capital of art seemed too glorious and magnificent to be really true, for Colin Churchill.
For a while, the delightful exhilaration of knowing that that very carriage in which he sat was actually going straight through to Rome left him little room to notice the faces or personalities of his fellow-travellers. But as they gradually got well outside the Paris ring, and launched into the country towards Fontainebleau, Colin had leisure to look about him and take stock of the companions he was to have on his way southward. Three of them were Frenchmen only going to Lyon and Marseille only, Colin thought to himself, naively, for he despised anybody now who was bound for anywhere on earth save the city of Michael Angelo and Canova and Thorwaldsen; but the other two were bound, by the labels on their luggage, for Rome itself. One of them was a tall military-looking gentleman, with a grizzled grey moustache, a Colonel somebody, the hat-box said, but the name was covered by a label; the other, apparently his daughter, was a handsome girl of about twenty, largely built and selfpossessed, like a woman who has lived much in the world from her childhood upward. Colin saw at once, that, unlike little Minna (who had essentially a painters face and figure), this graceful full-formed woman was entirely and exquisitely statuesque. The very pose of her arm upon the slight ledge of the window as she leaned out to look at the country was instinct with plastic capabilities. Colin, with his professional interest always uppermost, felt a perfect longing to have up a batch of clay forthwith and model it then and there upon the spot. He watched each new movement and posture so closely, in fact (of course in his capacity as a sculptor only), that the girl herself noticed his evident admiration, and took it sedately like a woman of the world. She didnt blush and shrink away timidly, as Minna would have done under the same circumstances (though her skin was many shades lighter than Minnas rich brunette complexion, and would have shown the faintest suspicion of a blush, had one been present, far more readily); she merely observed and accepted Colins silent tribute of admiration as her natural due. It made her just a trifle more self-conscious, perhaps, but that was all; indeed, one could hardly say whether even so the somewhat studied attitudes she seemed to be taking up were not really the ones which by long use had become the easiest for her. There are some beautiful women so accustomed to displaying their beauty to the best advantage that they cant even throw themselves down on a sofa in their own bedrooms without instinctively and automatically assuming a graceful position for all their limbs.
After a while, they fell into a conversation; and Colin, who was the most innocent and unartificial of men, was amused to find that even he, on the spur of the moment, had arrived at a very obvious, worldly-wise principle upon this subject. Wishing to get into a talk with the daughter, he felt half-unconsciously that it wouldnt do to begin by addressing her outright, but that he should first, with seeming guilelessness, attack her father. A man who is travelling with a pretty girl, in whatever relation, doesnt like you to begin an acquaintanceship of travel by speaking to her first; he resents your intrusion, and considers you have no right to talk to ladies under his escort. But when you begin by addressing himself, that is quite another matter; lured on by his quiet good sense, or his conversational powers, or his profound knowledge, or whatever else it is that he specially prides himself upon, you are soon launched upon general topics, and then the ladies of the party naturally chime in after a few minutes. To start by addressing him is a compliment to his intelligence or his social qualities; to start by addressing his companion is a distinct slight to himself, at the same time that it displays your own cards far too openly. You can convert him at once either into a valuable ally or into an enemy and a jealous guardian. Of course every other man feels this from his teens; but Colin hadnt yet mixed much in the world, and he smiled to himself at his acumen in discovering it at all on the first trial.