Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/250

 The young man disengaged himself, made a ceremonious bow, clasped his two hands and murmured with an ecstatic smile "May I venture to hope, dear signorina, for the honour of your hand?"

"It would be fine if you might n't!" said Mrs. Light. "The honour 's for us!"

Christina hesitated but a moment, then swept the young man a curtsey as profound as his own salutation. "You 're very kind, Prince, but you 're too late. I 've just accepted!"

"Ah, voyons, my own darling!" murmured—almost moaned—Mrs. Light.

Christina and Roderick exchanged a single glance—a glance caught by Rowland and which attested on the part of each something of a new consciousness. She passed her hand into his arm; he tossed his ambrosial locks and led her away.

A short time afterwards Rowland saw the young man she had rejected leaning against a doorway. His countenance, constructed and regular, was yet as heavy as if it had been, for brow, nose and mouth, all cornice, column and basement. A portrait-figure of some Renaissance court where poison was used, his rather lustreless part there would have been to die of it. But he was distinguished and bored; he fingered his young moustache broodingly, as if it had been the relic of an ancestor, and looked up nostalgically at the rococo mythological world of the fine old florid ceiling. The creatures there would have indeed been more his Company and his "form," Rowland thought, than the modern polyglot crowd. Rowland espied the Cavaliere Giacosa hard by 216