“Of course!” cried Roderick, impatiently.

“Dearest mother,” interposed the young girl, “how can you carry a marble bust about the world with you?  Is it not enough to drag the poor original?”

“My dear, you ’re nonsensical!” cried Mrs. Light, almost angrily.

“You can always sell it,” said the young girl, with the same artful artlessness.

Mrs. Light turned to Rowland, who pitied her, flushed and irritated.  “She is very wicked to-day!”

The Cavaliere grinned in silence and walked away on tiptoe, with his hat to his lips, as if to leave the field clear for action.  Rowland, on the contrary, wished to avert the coming storm.  “You had better not refuse,” he said to Miss Light, “until you have seen Mr. Hudson’s things in the marble.  Your mother is to come and look at some that I possess.”

“Thank you; I have no doubt you will see us.  I dare say Mr. Hudson is very clever; but I don’t care for modern sculpture.  I can’t look at it!”

“You shall care for my bust, I promise you!” cried Roderick, with a laugh.

“To satisfy Miss Light,” said the Cavaliere, “one of the old Greeks ought to come to life.”

“It would be worth his while,” said Roderick, paying, to Rowland’s knowledge, his first compliment.

“I might sit to Phidias, if he would promise to be very amusing and make me laugh.  What do you say, Stenterello? would you sit to Phidias?”

“We must talk of this some other time,” said Mrs. Light.  “We are in Rome for the winter.  Many thanks.  Cavaliere, call the carriage.”  The Cavaliere led the way out, backing like a silver-stick, and Miss Light, following her mother, nodded, without looking at them, to each of the young men.

“Immortal powers, what a head!” cried Roderick, when they had gone.  “There ’s my fortune!”

“She is certainly very beautiful,” said Rowland.  “But I ’m sorry you have undertaken her bust.”

“And why, pray?”

“I suspect it will bring trouble with it.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I hardly know.  They are queer people.  The mamma, I suspect, is the least bit of an adventuress.  Heaven knows what the daughter is.”

“She ’s a goddess!” cried Roderick.

“Just so.  She is all the more dangerous.”

“Dangerous?  What will she do to me?  She does n’t bite, I imagine.”

“It remains to be seen.  There are two kinds of women—­you ought to know it by this time—­the safe and the unsafe.  Miss Light, if I am not mistaken, is one of the unsafe.  A word to the wise!”

“Much obliged!” said Roderick, and he began to whistle a triumphant air, in honor, apparently, of the advent of his beautiful model.