“You know what I think of you,” said Rowland.  And for fear of being forced to betray his suspicion of the cause of her change, he took refuge in a commonplace.  “Your mother, I hope, is well.”

“My mother is in the enjoyment of superb health, and may be seen every evening at the Casino, at the Baths of Lucca, confiding to every new-comer that she has married her daughter to a pearl of a prince.”

Rowland was anxious for news of Mrs. Light’s companion, and the natural course was frankly to inquire about him.  “And the Cavaliere Giacosa is well?” he asked.

Christina hesitated, but she betrayed no other embarrassment.  “The Cavaliere has retired to his native city of Ancona, upon a pension, for the rest of his natural life.  He is a very good old man!”

“I have a great regard for him,” said Rowland, gravely, at the same time that he privately wondered whether the Cavaliere’s pension was paid by Prince Casamassima for services rendered in connection with his marriage.  Had the Cavaliere received his commission?  “And what do you do,” Rowland continued, “on leaving this place?”

“We go to Italy—­we go to Naples.”  She rose and stood silent a moment, looking down the valley.  The figure of Prince Casamassima appeared in the distance, balancing his white umbrella.  As her eyes rested upon it, Rowland imagined that he saw something deeper in the strange expression which had lurked in her face while he talked to her.  At first he had been dazzled by her blooming beauty, to which the lapse of weeks had only added splendor; then he had seen a heavier ray in the light of her eye—­a sinister intimation of sadness and bitterness.  It was the outward mark of her sacrificed ideal.  Her eyes grew cold as she looked at her husband, and when, after a moment, she turned them upon Rowland, they struck him as intensely tragical.  He felt a singular mixture of sympathy and dread; he wished to give her a proof of friendship, and yet it seemed to him that she had now turned her face in a direction where friendship was impotent to interpose.  She half read his feelings, apparently, and she gave a beautiful, sad smile.  “I hope we may never meet again!” she said.  And as Rowland gave her a protesting look—­“You have seen me at my best.  I wish to tell you solemnly, I was sincere!  I know appearances are against me,” she went on quickly.  “There is a great deal I can’t tell you.  Perhaps you have guessed it; I care very little.  You know, at any rate, I did my best.  It would n’t serve; I was beaten and broken; they were stronger than I. Now it ’s another affair!”

“It seems to me you have a large chance for happiness yet,” said Rowland, vaguely.

“Happiness?  I mean to cultivate rapture; I mean to go in for bliss ineffable!  You remember I told you that I was, in part, the world’s and the devil’s.  Now they have taken me all.  It was their choice; may they never repent!”

“I shall hear of you,” said Rowland.