CHAPTER XXI.

The engagement of the Senorita Rosita Campaneo was for four weeks, during which Mr. King called frequently and attended the opera constantly.  Every personal interview, and every vision of her on the stage, deepened the impression she made upon him when they first met.  It gratified him to see that, among the shower of bouquets she was constantly receiving, his was the one she usually carried; nor was she unobservant that he always wore a fresh rose.  But she was unconscious of his continual guardianship, and he was careful that she should remain so.  Every night that she went to the opera and returned from it, he assumed a dress like the driver’s, and sat with him on the outside of the carriage,—­a fact known only to Madame and the Signor, who were glad enough to have a friend at hand in case Mr. Fitzgerald should attempt any rash enterprise.  Policemen were secretly employed to keep the cantatrice in sight, whenever she went abroad for air or recreation.  When she made excursions out of the city in company with her adopted parents, Mr. King was always privately informed of it, and rode in the same direction; at a sufficient distance, however, not to be visible to her, or to excite gossiping remarks by appearing to others to be her follower.  Sometimes he asked himself:  “What would my dear prudential mother say, to see me leaving my business to agents and clerks, while I devote my life to the service of an opera-singer?—­an opera-singer, too, who has twice been on the verge of being sold as a slave, and who has been the victim of a sham marriage!” But though such queries jostled against conventional ideas received from education, they were always followed by the thought:  “My dear mother has gone to a sphere of wider vision, whence she can look down upon the merely external distinctions of this deceptive world.  Rosabella must be seen as a pure, good soul, in eyes that see as the angels do; and as the defenceless daughter of my father’s friend, it is my duty to protect her.”  So he removed from his more eligible lodgings in the Piazza di Spagna, and took rooms in the Corso, nearly opposite to hers, where day by day he continued his invisible guardianship.

He had reason, at various times, to think his precautions were not entirely unnecessary.  He had several times seen a figure resembling Fitzgerald’s lurking about the opera-house, wrapped in a cloak, and with a cap very much drawn over his face.  Once Madame and the Signor, having descended from the carriage, with Rosa, to examine the tomb of Cecilia Metella, were made a little uneasy by the appearance of four rude-looking fellows, who seemed bent upon lurking in their vicinity.  But they soon recognized Mr. King in the distance, and not far from him the disguised policemen in his employ.  The fears entertained by her friends were never mentioned to Rosa, and she appeared to feel no uneasiness when riding in daylight