Mrs. Vervain began to whimper. "You talk as if I were any better off. Have I anybody besides you? And I have lost so many."
"Don't think of those things now, mother."
Mrs. Vervain tenderly kissed the young girl. "You are good to your mother. Don Ippolito was right; no one ever saw you offer me disrespect or unkindness. There, there! Don't cry, my darling. I think I had better lie down, and I'll let you undress me."
She suffered herself to be helped into bed, and Florida went softly about the room, putting it in order, and drawing the curtains closer to keep out the near dawn. Her mother talked a little while, and presently fell from incoherence to silence, and so to sleep.
Florida looked hesitatingly at her for a moment, and then set her candle on the floor and sank wearily into an arm-chair beside the bed. Her hands fell into her lap; her head drooped sadly forward; the light flung the shadow of her face grotesquely exaggerated and foreshortened upon the ceiling.
By and by a bird piped in the garden; the shriek of a swallow made itself heard from a distance; the vernal day was beginning to stir from the light, brief drowse of the vernal night. A crown of angry red formed upon the candle wick, which toppled over in the socket and guttered out with a sharp hiss.
Florida started from her chair. A streak of sunshine pierced shutter and curtain. Her mother was supporting herself on one elbow in the bed, and looking at her as if she had just called to her.
"Mother, did you speak?" asked the girl.
Mrs. Vervain turned her face away; she sighed deeply, stretched her thin hands on the pillow, and seemed to be sinking, sinking down through the bed. She ceased to breathe and lay in a dead faint.
Florida felt rather than saw it all. She did not cry out nor call for help. She brought water and cologne, and bathed her mother's face, and then chafed her hands. Mrs. Vervain slowly revived; she opened her eyes, then closed them; she did not speak, but after a while she began to fetch her breath with the long and even respirations of sleep.
Florida noiselessly opened the door, and met the servant with a tray of coffee. She put her finger to her lip, and motioned her not to enter, asking in a whisper: "What time is it, Nina? I forgot to wind my watch."
"It's nine o'clock, signorina; and I thought you would be tired this morning, and would like your coffee in bed. Oh, misericordia!" cried the girl, still in whisper, with a glance through the doorway, "you haven't been in bed at all!"
"My mother doesn't seem well. I sat down beside her, and fell asleep in my chair without knowing it."
"Ah, poor little thing! Then you must drink your coffee at once. It refreshes."
"Yes, yes," said Florida, closing the door, and pointing to a table in the next room, "put it down here. I will serve myself, Nina. Go call the gondola, please. I am going out, at once, and I want you to go with me. Tell Checa to come here and stay with my mother till I come back."
She poured out a cup of coffee with a trembling hand, and hastily drank it; then bathing her eyes, she went to the glass and bestowed a touch or two upon yesterday's toilet, studied the effect a moment, and turned away. She ran back for another look, and the next moment she was walking down to the water-gate, where she found Nina waiting her in the gondola.
A rapid course brought them to Ferris's landing. "Ring," she said to the gondolier, "and say that one of the American ladies wishes to see the consul."
Ferris was standing on the balcony over her, where he had been watching her approach in mute wonder. "Why, Miss Vervain," he called down, "what in the world is the matter?"
"I don't know. I want to see you," said Florida, looking up with a wistful face.
"I'll come down."
"Yes, please. Or no, I had better come up. Yes, Nina and I will come up."
Ferris met them at the lower door and led them to his apartment. Nina sat down in the outer room, and Florida followed the painter into his studio. Though her face was so wan, it seemed to him that he had never seen it lovelier, and he had a strange pride in her being there, though the disorder of the place ought to have humbled him. She looked over it with a certain childlike, timid curiosity, and something of that lofty compassion with which young ladies regard the haunts of men when they come into them by chance; in doing this she had a haughty, slow turn of the head that fascinated him.
"I hope," he said, "you don't mind the smell," which was a mingled one of oil-colors and tobacco-smoke. "The woman's putting my office to rights, and it's all in a cloud of dust. So I have to bring you in here."
Florida sat down on a chair fronting the easel, and found herself looking into the sad eyes of Don Ippolito. Ferris brusquely turned the back of the canvas toward her. "I didn't mean you to see that. It isn't ready to show, yet," he said, and then he stood expectantly before her. He waited for her to speak, for he never knew how to take Miss Vervain; he was willing enough to make light of her grand moods, but now she was too evidently unhappy for mocking; at the same time he did not care to invoke a snub by a prematurely sympathetic demeanor. His mind ran on the events of the day before, and he thought this visit probably related somehow to Don Ippolito. But his visitor did not speak, and at last he said: "I hope there's nothing wrong at home, Miss Vervain. It's rather odd to have yesterday, last night, and next morning all run together as they have been for me in the last twenty-four hours. I trust Mrs. Vervain is turning the whole thing into a good solid oblivion."
"It's about—it's about—I came to see you"—said Florida, hoarsely. "I mean," she hurried on to say, "that I want to ask you who is the best doctor here?"
Then it was not about Don Ippolito. "Is your mother sick?" asked Ferris, eagerly. "She must have been fearfully tired by that unlucky expedition of ours. I hope there's nothing serious?"
"No, no! But she is not well. She is very frail, you know. You must have noticed how frail she is," said Florida, tremulously.
Ferris had noticed that all his countrywomen, past their girlhood, seemed to be sick, he did not know how or why; he supposed it was all right, it was so common. In Mrs. Vervain's case, though she talked a great deal about her ill-health, he had noticed it rather less than usual, she had so great spirit. He recalled now that he had thought her at times rather a shadowy presence, and that occasionally it had amused him that so slight a structure should hang together as it did—not only successfully, but triumphantly.
He said yes, he knew that Mrs. Vervain was not strong, and Florida continued: "It's only advice that I want for her, but I think we had better see some one—or know some one that we could go to in need. We are so far from any one we know, or help of any kind." She seemed to be trying to account to herself, rather than to Ferris, for what she was doing. "We mustn't let anything pass unnoticed".... She looked at him entreatingly, but a shadow, as of some wounding memory, passed over her face, and she said no more.
"I'll go with you to a doctor's," said Ferris, kindly.
"No, please, I won't trouble you."
"It's no trouble."
"I don't want you to go with me, please. I'd rather go alone." Ferris looked at her perplexedly, as she rose. "Just give me the address, and I shall manage best by myself. I'm used to doing it."
"As you like. Wait a moment." Ferris wrote the address. "There," he said, giving it to her; "but isn't there anything I can do for you?"
"Yes," answered Florida with awkward hesitation, and a half-defiant, half-imploring look at him. "You must have all sorts of people applying to you, as a consul; and you look after their affairs—and try to forget them"—
"Well?" said Ferris.
"I wish you wouldn't remember that I've asked this favor of you; that you'd consider it a"—
"Consular service? With all my heart," answered Ferris, thinking for the third or fourth time how