It was the same old priest with whom he had seen Hilda, at the
confessional; the same with whom he had talked of her disappearance on
meeting him in the street.
Yet, whatever might be the reason, Kenyon did not now associate this
ecclesiastical personage with the idea of Hilda. His eyes lighted on the
old man, just for an instant, and then returned to the eddying throng of
the Corso, on his minute scrutiny of which depended, for aught he knew,
the sole chance of ever finding any trace of her. There was, about this
moment, a bustle on the other side of the street, the cause of which
Kenyon did not see, nor exert himself to discover. A small party of
soldiers or gendarmes appeared to be concerned in it; they were perhaps
arresting some disorderly character, who, under the influence of an
extra flask of wine, might have reeled across the mystic limitation of
carnival proprieties.
The sculptor heard some people near him talking of the incident.
"That contadina, in a black mask, was a fine figure of a woman."
"She was not amiss," replied a female voice; "but her companion was far
the handsomer figure of the two. Could they be really a peasant and a
contadina, do you imagine?"
"No, no," said the other. "It is some frolic of the Carnival, carried a
little too far."
This conversation might have excited Kenyon's interest; only that, just
as the last words were spoken, he was hit by two missiles, both of a
kind that were flying abundantly on that gay battlefield. One, we are
ashamed to say, was a cauliflower, which, flung by a young man from a
passing carriage, came with a prodigious thump against his shoulder;
the other was a single rosebud, so fresh that it seemed that moment
gathered. It flew from the opposite balcony, smote gently on his lips,
and fell into his hand. He looked upward, and beheld the face of his
lost Hilda!
She was dressed in a white domino, and looked pale and bewildered,
and yet full of tender joy. Moreover, there was a gleam of delicate
mirthfulness in her eyes, which the sculptor had seen there only two or
three times in the course of their acquaintance, but thought it the most
bewitching and fairylike of all Hilda's expressions. That soft, mirthful
smile caused her to melt, as it were, into the wild frolic of the
Carnival, and become not so strange and alien to the scene, as her
unexpected apparition must otherwise have made her.
Meanwhile, the venerable Englishman and his daughters were staring at
poor Hilda in a way that proved them altogether astonished, as well
as inexpressibly shocked, by her sudden intrusion into their private
balcony. They looked,--as, indeed, English people of respectability
would, if an angel were to alight in their circle, without due
introduction from somebody whom they knew, in the court above,--they
looked as if an unpardonable liberty had been taken, and a suitable
apology must be made; after which, the intruder would be expected to
withdraw.