Mr Glascock had returned to Naples after his sufferings in the dining-room of the American Minister, and by the middle of February was back again in Florence. His father was still alive, and it was said that the old lord would now probably live through the winter. And it was understood that Mr Glascock would remain in Italy. He had declared that he would pass his time between Naples, Rome, and Florence; but it seemed to his friends that Florence was, of the three, the most to his taste. He liked his room, he said; at the York Hotel, and he liked being in the capital. That was his own statement. His friends said that he liked being with Carry Spalding, the daughter of the American Minister; but none of them, then in Italy, were sufficiently intimate with him to express that opinion to himself.
It had been expressed more than once to Carry Spalding. The world in general says such things to ladies more openly than it does to men, and the probability of a girl’s success in matrimony is canvassed in her hearing by those who are nearest to her with a freedom which can seldom be used in regard to a man. A man’s most intimate friend hardly speaks to him of the prospect of his marriage till he himself has told that the engagement exists. The lips of no living person had suggested to Mr Glascock that the American girl was to become his wife; but a great deal had been said to Carry Spalding about the conquest she had made. Her uncle, her aunt, her sister, and her great friend Miss Petrie, the poetess — the Republican Browning as she was called — had all spoken to her about it frequently. Olivia had declared her conviction that the thing was to be. Miss Petrie had, with considerable eloquence, explained to her friend that that English title, which was but the clatter of a sounding brass, should be regarded as a drawback rather than as an advantage. Mrs Spalding, who was no poetess, would undoubtedly have welcomed Mr Glascock as her niece’s husband with all an aunt’s energy. When told by Miss Petrie that old Lord Peterborough was a tinkling cymbal she snapped angrily at her gifted countrywoman. But she was too honest a woman, and too conscious also of her niece’s strength, to say a word to urge her on. Mr Spalding as an American minister, with full powers at the court of a European sovereign, felt that he had full as much to give as to receive; but he was well inclined to do both. He would have been much pleased to talk about his nephew Lord Peterborough, and he loved his niece dearly. But by the middle of February he was beginning to think that the matter had been long enough in training. If the Honourable Glascock meant anything, why did he not speak out his mind plainly? The American Minister in such matters was accustomed to fewer ambages than were common in the circles among which Mr Glascock had lived.
In the meantime Caroline Spalding was suffering. She had allowed herself to think that Mr Glascock intended to propose to her, and had acknowledged to herself that were he to do so she would certainly accept him. All that she had seen of him, since the day on which he had been courteous to her about the seat in the diligence, had been pleasant to her. She had felt the charm of his manner, his education, and his gentleness; and had told herself that with all her love for her own country, she would willingly become an Englishwoman for the sake of being that man’s wife. But nevertheless the warnings of her great friend, the poetess, had not been thrown away upon her. She would put away from herself as far as she could any desire to become Lady Peterborough. There should be no bias in the man’s favour on that score. The tinkling cymbal and the sounding brass should be nothing to her. But yet — yet what a chance was there here for her? ‘They are dishonest, and rotten at the core,’ said Miss Petrie, trying to make her friend understand that a free American should under no circumstances place trust in an English aristocrat. ‘Their country, Carry, is a game played out, while we are still breasting the hill with our young lungs full of air.’ Carry Spalding was proud of her intimacy with the Republican Browning; but nevertheless she liked Mr Glascock; and when Mr Glascock had been ten days in Florence, on his third visit to the city, and had been four or five times at the embassy without expressing his intentions in the proper form, Carry Spalding began to think that she had better save herself from a heartbreak while salvation might be within her reach. She perceived that her uncle was gloomy and almost angry when he spoke of Mr Glascock, and that her aunt was fretful with disappointment. The Republican Browning had uttered almost a note of triumph; and had it not been that Olivia persisted, Carry Spalding would have consented to go away with Miss Petrie to Rome. ‘The old stones are rotten too,’ said the poetess; ‘but their dust tells no lies.’ That well known piece of hers ‘Ancient Marbles, while ye crumble,’ was written at this time, and contained an occult reference to Mr Glascock and her friend.
But Livy Spalding clung to the alliance. She probably knew her sister’s heart better than did the others; and perhaps also had a clearer insight into Mr Glascock’s character. She was at any rate clearly of opinion that there should be no running away. ‘Either you do like him, or you don’t. If you do, what are you to get by going to Rome?’ said Livy.
‘I shall get quit of doubt and trouble.’
‘I call that cowardice. I would never run away from a man, Carry. Aunt Sophie forgets that they don’t manage these things in England just as we do.’
‘I don’t know why there should be a difference.’
‘Nor do I, only that there is. You haven’t read so many of their novels as I have.’
‘Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?’ said Carry.
‘I am not saying that. You may teach him to live how you like afterwards. But if you have anything to do with people it must be well to know what their manners are. I think the richer sort of people in England slide into these things more gradually than we do. You stand your ground, Carry, and hold your own, and take the goods the gods provide you.’ Though Caroline Spalding opposed her sister’s arguments, and was particularly hard upon that allusion to ‘the richer sort of people,’ which, as she knew, Miss Petrie would have regarded as evidence of reverence for sounding brasses and tinkling cymbals, nevertheless she loved Livy dearly for what she said, and kissed the sweet counsellor, and resolved that she would for the present decline the invitation of the poetess. Then was Miss Petrie somewhat indignant with her friend, and threw out her scorn in those lines which have been mentioned.
But the American Minister hardly knew how to behave himself when he met Mr Glascock, or even when he was called upon to speak of him. Florence no doubt is a large city, and is now the capital of a great kingdom; but still people meet in Florence much more frequently than they do in Paris or in London. It may almost be said that they whose habit it is to go into society, and whose circumstances bring them into the same circles, will see each other every day. Now the American Minister delighted to see and to be seen in all places frequented by persons of a certain rank and position in Florence. Having considered the matter much, he had convinced himself that he could thus best do his duty as minister from the great Republic of Free States to the newest and as he called it ‘the free-est of the European kingdoms.’ The minister from France was a marquis; he from England was an earl; from Spain had come a count and so on. In the domestic privacy of his embassy Mr Spalding would be severe enough upon the sounding brasses and the tinkling cymbals, and was quite content himself to be the Honourable Jonas G. Spalding — Honourable because selected by his country for a post of honour; but he liked to be heard among the cymbals and seen among the brasses, and to feel that his position was as high as theirs. Mr Glascock also was frequently in the same circles, and thus it came to pass that the two gentlemen saw each other almost daily. That Mr Spalding knew well how to bear himself in his high place no one could doubt; but he did not quite know how to carry himself before Mr Glascock. At home at Boston he would have been more completely master of the situation.
He thought too that he began to perceive that Mr Glascock avoided him, though he would hear on his return home that that gentleman had been at the embassy, or had been walking in the Cascine with his nieces. That their young ladies should walk in public places with unmarried gentlemen is nothing to American fathers and guardians. American young ladies are accustomed to choose their own companions. But the minister was tormented by his doubts as to the ways of Englishmen, and as to the phase in which English habits might most properly exhibit themselves in Italy. He knew that people were talking about Mr Glascock and his niece. Why then did Mr Glascock avoid him? It was perhaps natural that Mr Spalding should have omitted to observe that Mr Glascock was not delighted by those lectures on the American constitution which formed so large a part of his ordinary conversation with Englishmen.
It happened one afternoon that they were thrown together so closely for nearly an hour that neither could avoid the other. They were both at the old palace in which the Italian parliament is held, and were kept waiting during some long delay in the ceremonies of the place. They were seated next to each other, and during such delay there was nothing for them but to talk. On the other side of each of them was a stranger, and not to talk in such circumstances would be to quarrel. Mr Glascock began by asking after the ladies.
‘They are quite well, sir, thank you,’ said the minister. ‘I hope that Lord Peterborough was pretty well when last you heard from Naples, Mr Glascock.’ Mr Glascock explained that his father’s condition was not much altered, and then there was silence for a moment.
‘Your nieces will remain with you through the spring I suppose?’ said Mr Glascock.
‘Such is their intention, sir.’
‘They seem to like Florence, I think.’
‘Yes yes; I think they do like Florence. They see this capital, sir, perhaps under more favourable circumstances than are accorded to most of my countrywomen. Our republican simplicity, Mr Glascock, has this drawback, that away from home it subjects us somewhat to the cold shade of unobserved obscurity. That it possesses merits which much more than compensate for this trifling evil I should be the last man in Europe to deny.’ It is to be observed that American citizens are always prone to talk of Europe. It affords the best counterpoise they know to that other term, America, and America and the United States are of course the same. To speak of France or of England as weighing equally against their own country seems to an American to be an absurdity and almost an insult to himself. With Europe he can compare himself, but even this is done generally in the style of the Republican Browning when she addressed the Ancient Marbles.
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Mr Glascock, ‘the family of a minister abroad has great advantages in seeing the country to which he is accredited.’
‘That is my meaning, sir. But, as I was remarking, we carry with us as a people no external symbols of our standing at home. The wives and daughters, sir, of the most honoured of our citizens have no nomenclature different than that which belongs to the least noted among us. It is perhaps a consequence of this t............