Sunrise | Page 9

my earliest recollections," she said: "I remember
it very well. Kossuth was carrying me round the room on his shoulder.
I suppose I had been listening to the talk of the gentlemen; for I said to
him, 'When they burned my papa in effigy at Pesth, why was I not
allowed to go and see?' And he said--I remember the sound of his voice
even now--'Little child, you were not born then. But if you had been
able to go, do you know what they would have done to you? They
would have flogged you. Do you not know that the Austrians flog
women? When you grow up, little child, your papa will tell you the
story of Madame von Maderspach.'" Then she added, "That is one of
my valued recollections, that when I was a child I was carried on
Kossuth's shoulders."
"You have no similar reminiscence of Gorgey, I suppose?" Brand said,
with a smile.
He had spoken quite inadvertently, without the slightest thought in the
world of wounding her feelings. But he was surprised and shocked by
the extraordinary effect which this chance remark produced on the tall
and beautiful girl standing there; for an instant she paused, as if not
knowing what to say. Then she said proudly, and she turned away as
she did so,

"Perhaps you are not aware that there are some names you should not
mention in the presence of a Hungarian woman."
What was there in the tone of the voice that made him rapidly glance at
her eyes, as she turned away, pretending to carry back the photographs?
He was not deceived. Those large dark eyes were full of sudden,
indignant tears; she had not turned quite quickly enough to conceal
them.
Of course, he instantly and amply apologized for his ignorance and
stupidity; but what he said to himself was, "That child is not acting. She
may be Lind's daughter, after all. Poor thing! she is too beautiful, and
generous, and noble to be made the decoy of a revolutionary
adventurer."
At this moment Lord Evelyn arrived, throwing a quick glance of
inquiry toward his friend, to see what impression, so far, had been
produced. But the tall, red-bearded Englishman maintained, as the
diplomatists say, an attitude of the strictest reserve. The keen gray eyes
were respectful attentive, courteous--especially when they were turned
to Miss Lind; beyond that, nothing.
Now they had not been seated at the dinner-table more than a few
minutes before George Brand began to ask himself whether it was
really Curzon Street he was dining in. The oddly furnished room was
adorned with curiosities to which every capital in Europe would seem
to have contributed. The servants, exclusively women, were foreign;
the table glass and decorations were all foreign; the unostentatious little
banquet was distinctly foreign. Why, the very bell that had summoned
them down--what was there in the soft sound of it that had reminded
him of something far away? It was a haunting sound, and he kept
puzzling over the vague association it seemed to call up. At last he
frankly mentioned the matter to Miss Lind, who seemed greatly
pleased.
"Ah, did you like the sound?" she said, in that low and harmonious
voice of hers. "The bell was an invention of my own; shall I show it to
you?"

The Dresden shepherdess, by name Anneli, being despatched into the
hall, presently returned with an object somewhat resembling in shape a
Cheshire cheese, but round at the top, formed of roughly filed metal of
a lustrous yellow-gray. Round the rude square handle surmounting it
was carelessly twisted a bit of old orange silk; other decoration there
was none.
"Do you see what it is now?" she said. "Only one of the great bells the
people use for the cattle on the Campagna. Where did I get it? Oh, you
know the Piazza Montenara, in Rome, of course? There is a place there
where they sell such things to the country people. You could get one
without difficulty, if you are not afraid of being laughed at as a mad
Englishman. That bit of embroidered ribbon, though, I got in an old
shop in Florence."
Indeed, what struck him further was, not only the foreign look of the
little room and its belongings, but also the extraordinary familiarity
with foreign cities shown by both Lind and his daughter. As the
rambling conversation went on (the sonorous cattle-bell had been
removed by the rosy-cheeked Anneli), they appeared to be just as much
at home in Madrid, in Munich, in Turin, or Genoa as in London. And it
was no vague and general tourist's knowledge that these two
cosmopolitans showed; it was rather the knowledge of a resident--an
intimate acquaintance with persons, streets, shops, and houses. George