And now she would be away
somewhere, where he could not get hold of her to pet her into a
reconciliation again; no doubt there was some hurt feeling of injury in
her heart--perhaps she was even crying.
"Poor Nina!" he said to himself, little dreaming of the true state of
affairs. "I hope it isn't so? but if it is so, here have I, through mere
thoughtlessness, wounded her pride, and, what is more, interfered with
her professional career. I suppose she'll go right away back to old
Pandiani; and they'll be precious glad to get her now at Malta, after
her success in England. Perhaps some day we shall hear of her coming
over here again, as a famous star in grand opera; that will be her
revenge. But I never thought Nina would want to be revenged on me."
And yet he was uneasy; there was something in all this he did not
understand. He began to long for the coming of the next day, that he
might go away down to Sloane Street and hear what Miss Girond had to
tell him. Why, for example, he asked himself, had Nina taken this step
so abruptly--so entirely without warning? How and when had she made the
discovery that she had mistaken the intention of those friendly little
acts of kindness and his constant association with her? Then he tried to
remember on what terms he had last parted from her.
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