by the solemnity of his attention to his plate.  As for Rowland, the spirit of kindly mirth prompted him to propose the health of this useful old gentleman, as the effective author of their pleasure.  A moment later he wished he had held his tongue, for although the toast was drunk with demonstrative good-will, the Cavaliere received it with various small signs of eager self-effacement which suggested to Rowland that his diminished gentility but half relished honors which had a flavor of patronage.  To perform punctiliously his mysterious duties toward the two ladies, and to elude or to baffle observation on his own merits—­this seemed the Cavaliere’s modest programme.  Rowland perceived that Mrs. Light, who was not always remarkable for tact, seemed to have divined his humor on this point.  She touched her glass to her lips, but offered him no compliment and immediately gave another direction to the conversation.  He had brought no guitar, so that when the feast was over there was nothing to hold the little group together.  Christina wandered away with Roderick to another part of the terrace; the prince, whose smile had vanished, sat gnawing the head of his cane, near Mrs. Light, and Rowland strolled apart with the Cavaliere, to whom he wished to address a friendly word in compensation for the discomfort he had inflicted on his modesty.  The Cavaliere was a mine of information upon all Roman places and people; he told Rowland a number of curious anecdotes about the old Villa Mondragone.  “If history could always be taught in this fashion!” thought Rowland.  “It ’s the ideal—­strolling up and down on the very spot commemorated, hearing sympathetic anecdotes from deeply indigenous lips.”  At last, as they passed, Rowland observed the mournful physiognomy of Prince Casamassima, and, glancing toward the other end of the terrace, saw that Roderick and Christina had disappeared from view.  The young man was sitting upright, in an attitude, apparently habitual, of ceremonious rigidity; but his lower jaw had fallen and was propped up with his cane, and his dull dark eye was fixed upon the angle of the villa which had just eclipsed Miss Light and her companion.  His features were grotesque and his expression vacuous; but there was a lurking delicacy in his face which seemed to tell you that nature had been making Casamassimas for a great many centuries, and, though she adapted her mould to circumstances, had learned to mix her material to an extraordinary fineness and to perform the whole operation with extreme smoothness.  The prince was stupid, Rowland suspected, but he imagined he was amiable, and he saw that at any rate he had the great quality of regarding himself in a thoroughly serious light.  Rowland touched his companion’s arm and pointed to the melancholy nobleman.

“Why in the world does he not go after her and insist on being noticed!” he asked.

“Oh, he ’s very proud!” said the Cavaliere.

“That ’s all very well, but a gentleman who cultivates a passion for that young lady must be prepared to make sacrifices.”