ainst so much passivity was, with no great
richness, that he at least knew--knew, that is, how he was, and how
little he liked it as a thing accepted in mere helplessness. He was,
for the moment, wistful--that above all described it; that was so large
a part of the force that, as the autumn afternoon closed in, kept him,
on his traghetto, positively throbbing with his question. His question
connected itself, even while he stood, with his special smothered
soreness, his sense almost of shame; and the soreness and the shame
were less as he let himself, with the help of the conditions about him,
regard it as serious. It was born, for that matter, partly of the
conditions, those conditions that Kate had so almost insolently braved,
had been willing, without a pang, to see him ridiculously--ridiculously
so far as just complacently--exposed to. How little it _could_ be
complacently he was to feel with the last thoroughness before he had
moved from his point of vantage. His question, as we have called it,
was the interesting question of whether he had really no will left. How
could he know--that was the point--without putting the matter to the
test? It had been right to be _bon prince,_ and the joy, something of
the pride, of having lived, in spirit, handsomely, was even now
compatible with the impulse to look into their account; but he held his
breath a little as it came home to him with supreme sharpness that,
whereas he had done absolutely everything that Kate had wanted, she had
done nothing whatever that he had. So it was in fine that his idea of
the test by which he must try that possibility kept referring itself,
in the warm early dusk, the approach of the Southern
night--"conditions" these, such as we just spoke of--to the glimmer,
more and more ghostly as the light failed, of the little white papers
on his old green shutters. By the time he looked at his watch he had
been for a quarter of an hour at this post of observation and
reflexion; but by the time he walked away again he had found his answer
to the idea that had grown so importunate. Since a proof of his will
was wanted it was indeed very exactly in wait for him--it lurked there
on the other side of the Canal. A ferryman at the little pier had from
time to time accosted him; but it was a part of the play of his
nervousness to turn his back on that facility. He would go over, but he
walked, very quickly, round and round, crossing finally by the Rialto.
The rooms,