had lain awake or had something on his mind; and when I asked him what
he had done after my premature departure--I explained this by saying I
had been tired of waiting for him; fagged with my journey I had wanted
to go to bed--he replied: "Oh nothing in particular. I hung about the
place; I like it better than this one. We had an awfully jolly time on
the water. _I_ wasn't in the least fagged." I didn't worry him with
questions; it struck me as gross to try to probe his secret. The only
indication he gave was on my saying after breakfast that I should go
over again to see our friends and my appearing to take for granted he
would be glad to come too. Then he let fall that he'd stop at Stresa--he
had paid them such a tremendous visit; also that he had arrears of
letters. There was a freshness in his scruples about the length of his
visits, and I knew something about his correspondence, which consisted
entirely of twenty pages every week from his mother. But he soothed my
anxiety so little that it was really this yearning that carried me back
to Baveno. This time I ordered a conveyance, and as I got into it he
stood watching me from the porch of the hotel with his hands in his
pockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw in the poor youth's
face the expression of a person slightly dazed, slightly foolish even,
to whom something disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as I observed
him, and I was on the point of saying "You had really better come with
me" when he turned away. He went into the house as to escape my call. I
said to myself that he had been indeed warned off, but that it wouldn't
take much to bring him back.

The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno described my friends as in a
summer-house in the garden, to which he led the way. The place at large
had an empty air; most of the inmates of the hotel were dispersed on the
lake, on the hills, in picnics, excursions, visits to the Borromean
Islands. My guide was so far right as that Linda was in the summer-