“You mean to marry her?” asked Mary Gowd.

Blue Cape shrugged eloquent shoulders: 

“I think not,” he said quite simply.

* * * * *

It was to be the Appian Way the next morning, with a stop at the Catacombs.  Mary Gowd reached the hotel very early, but not so early as Caldini.

“Think the five of us can pile into one carriage?” boomed Henry Gregg cheerily.

“A little crowded, I think,” said Mary Gowd, “for such a long drive.  May I suggest that we three”—­she smiled on Henry Gregg and his wife—­“take this larger carriage, while Miss Eleanora and Signor Caldini follow in the single cab?”

A lightning message from Blue Cape’s eyes.

“Yes; that would be nice!” cooed Tweetie.

So it was arranged.  Mary Gowd rather outdid herself as a guide that morning.  She had a hundred little intimate tales at her tongue’s end.  She seemed fairly to people those old ruins again with the men and women of a thousand years ago.  Even Tweetie—­little frivolous, indifferent Tweetie—­was impressed and interested.

As they were returning to the carriages after inspecting the Baths of Caracalla, Tweetie even skipped ahead and slipped her hand for a moment into Mary Gowd’s.

“You’re simply wonderful!” she said almost shyly.  “You make things sound so real.  And—­and I’m sorry I was so nasty to you yesterday at Tivoli.”

Mary Dowd looked down at the glowing little face.  A foolish little face it was, but very, very pretty, and exquisitely young and fresh and sweet.  Tweetie dropped her voice to a whisper: 

“You should hear him pronounce my name.  It is like music when he says it—­El-e-a-no-ra; like that.  And aren’t his kid gloves always beautifully white?  Why, the boys back home—­”

Mary Gowd was still staring down at her.  She lifted the slim, ringed little hand which lay within her white-cotton paw and stared at that too.

Then with a jerk she dropped the girl’s hand and squared her shoulders like a soldier, so that the dowdy blue suit strained more than ever at its seams; and the line that had settled about her mouth the night before faded slowly, as though a muscle too tightly drawn had relaxed.

In the carriages they were seated as before.  The horses started up, with the smaller cab but a dozen paces behind.  Mary Gowd leaned forward.  She began to speak—­her voice very low, her accent clearly English, her brevity wonderfully American.

“Listen to me!” she said.  “You must leave Rome to-night!”

“Leave Rome to-night!” echoed the Greggs as though rehearsing a duet.

“Be quiet!  You must not shout like that.  I say you must go away.”

Mamma Gregg opened her lips and shut them, wordless for once.  Henry Gregg laid one big hand on his wife’s shaking knees and eyed Mary Gowd very quietly.

“I don’t get you,” he said.