The surprise on Christina’s part, for an instant, was equal, and at first she seemed disposed to turn away without letting it give place to a greeting.  The prince, however, saluted gravely, and then Christina, in silence, put out her hand.  Rowland immediately asked whether they were staying at Engelberg, but Christina only looked at him without speaking.  The prince answered his questions, and related that they had been making a month’s tour in Switzerland, that at Lucerne his wife had been somewhat obstinately indisposed, and that the physician had recommended a week’s trial of the tonic air and goat’s milk of Engelberg.  The scenery, said the prince, was stupendous, but the life was terribly sad—­and they had three days more!  It was a blessing, he urbanely added, to see a good Roman face.

Christina’s attitude, her solemn silence and her penetrating gaze seemed to Rowland, at first, to savor of affectation; but he presently perceived that she was profoundly agitated, and that she was afraid of betraying herself.  “Do let us leave this hideous edifice,” she said; “there are things here that set one’s teeth on edge.”  They moved slowly to the door, and when they stood outside, in the sunny coolness of the valley, she turned to Rowland and said, “I am extremely glad to see you.”  Then she glanced about her and observed, against the wall of the church, an old stone seat.  She looked at Prince Casamassima a moment, and he smiled more intensely, Rowland thought, than the occasion demanded.  “I wish to sit here,” she said, “and speak to Mr. Mallet—­alone.”

“At your pleasure, dear friend,” said the prince.

The tone of each was measured, to Rowland’s ear; but that of Christina was dry, and that of her husband was splendidly urbane.  Rowland remembered that the Cavaliere Giacosa had told him that Mrs. Light’s candidate was thoroughly a prince, and our friend wondered how he relished a peremptory accent.  Casamassima was an Italian of the undemonstrative type, but Rowland nevertheless divined that, like other princes before him, he had made the acquaintance of the thing called compromise.  “Shall I come back?” he asked with the same smile.

“In half an hour,” said Christina.

In the clear outer light, Rowland’s first impression of her was that she was more beautiful than ever.  And yet in three months she could hardly have changed; the change was in Rowland’s own vision of her, which that last interview, on the eve of her marriage, had made unprecedentedly tender.

“How came you here?” she asked.  “Are you staying in this place?”

“I am staying at Engelthal, some ten miles away; I walked over.”

“Are you alone?”

“I am with Mr. Hudson.”

“Is he here with you?”

“He went half an hour ago to climb a rock for a view.”

“And his mother and that young girl, where are they?”

“They also are at Engelthal.”