And this was the machine on which she and Mrs. Herriton and
Philip and Harriet had for the last month been exercising
their various ideals--had determined that in time it should
move this way or that way, should accomplish this and not
that. It was to be Low Church, it was to be
high-principled, it was to be tactful, gentlemanly,
artistic--excellent things all. Yet now that she saw this
baby, lying asleep on a dirty rug, she had a great
disposition not to dictate one of them, and to exert no more
influence than there may be in a kiss or in the vaguest of
the heartfelt prayers.
But she had practised self-discipline, and her thoughts
and actions were not yet to correspond. To recover her
self-esteem she tried to imagine that she was in her
district, and to behave accordingly.
"What a fine child, Signor Carella. And how nice of you
to talk to it. Though I see that the ungrateful little
fellow is asleep! Seven months? No, eight; of course
eight. Still, he is a remarkably fine child for his age."
Italian is a bad medium for condescension. The
patronizing words came out gracious and sincere, and he
smiled with pleasure.
"You must not stand. Let us sit on the loggia, where it
is cool. I am afraid the room is very untidy," he added,
with the air of a hostess who apologizes for a stray thread
on the drawing-room carpet. Miss Abbott picked her way to
the chair. He sat near her, astride the parapet, with one
foot in the loggia and the other dangling into the view.
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