During this colloquy they had entered the garden, which seemed at first glance a great luxuriant wilderness.  On the right hand of the gate was a huge jungle of blooming rose-bushes whose intertwisted branches climbed the tall stuccoed wall, for the possession of which it struggled bravely with an equally ambitious and vigorous ivy.  Enormous bearded cacti of fantastic forms spread their fat prickly leaves out over both sides of the pavement, leaving only a narrow aisle in the middle where locomotion was practicable.  A long flight of green and slippery stone steps led up to a lofty terrace which was raised above the rest of the garden by a high wall, surmounted by a low marble balustrade.  Here the palms spread their fan-like crowns against the blue sky, and the golden fruit shone among the dark leaves of the orange-trees.  A large sculptured Triton with inflated cheeks blew a column of water high up into the air, and half a dozen dolphins, ridden by chubby water-sprites, spouted demurely along the edges of a wide marble basin.  A noseless Roman senator stood at the top of the stairs, wrapping his mossy toga about him, with a splendid gesture, and the grave images of the Caesars, all time-stained and more or less seriously maimed, gazed forth with severe dignity from their green, leafy niches.

The upper garden showed signs of human supervision.  A considerable area was occupied by flower-beds, laid out with geometrical regularity and stiffness; and the low box-wood hedges along their borders had a density and preciseness of outline which showed that they had been recently trimmed.  Stone vases of magnificent design were placed at regular intervals along the balustrade; and in the middle projection of the terrace stood a hoary table with a broken porphyry plate, suggestive of coffee and old-time costumes, and the ponderous gossip of Roman grandees.

Cranbrook had walked for a while silently at Annunciata’s side.  He was deeply impressed with all he saw, and yet a dreamy sense of their unreality was gradually stealing over him.  He imagined himself some wonderful personage in an Eastern fairy-tale, and felt for the moment as if he were moving in an animated chapter of the “Arabian Nights.”  He had had little hesitation in asking Annunciata questions about herself; they seemed both, somehow, raised above the petty etiquette of mundane intercourse.  She had confessed to him with an unthinking directness which was extremely becoming to her, that her artistic aspirations which he had found so mysterious were utterly destitute of the ideal afflatus.  She had, as a child, learned lace-making and embroidery, and had earned many a lira by adorning the precious vestments of archbishops and cardinals.  She was now making a design for a tapestry, in which she meant to introduce the group from the antique relief.  Her father allowed her to save all she earned for her dowry; because then, he said, she might be able to make a good match.  This latter statement grated a little on Cranbrook’s sensitive ears; but a glance at Annunciata’s face soon reassured him.  She had the air of stating a universally recognized fact concerning which she had never had occasion to reflect.  She kept prattling away very much like a spoiled child, who is confident that its voice is pleasant, and its little experiences as absorbing to its listener as they are to itself.