“You describe them perfectly,” said Rowland.  “They are beautiful, and yet they have no chic.  That ’s it!”

“If he will promise to put none into my bust, I have a mind to let him make it.  A request made in those terms deserves to be granted.”

“In what terms?”

“Did n’t you hear him?  ’Mademoiselle, you almost satisfy my conception of the beautiful.  I must model your bust.’  That almost should be rewarded.  He is like me; he likes to face the truth.  I think we should get on together.”

The Cavaliere approached Rowland, to express the pleasure he had derived from his beautiful “collection.”  His smile was exquisitely bland, his accent appealing, caressing, insinuating.  But he gave Rowland an odd sense of looking at a little waxen image, adjusted to perform certain gestures and emit certain sounds.  It had once contained a soul, but the soul had leaked out.  Nevertheless, Rowland reflected, there are more profitless things than mere sound and gesture, in a consummate Italian.  And the Cavaliere, too, had soul enough left to desire to speak a few words on his own account, and call Rowland’s attention to the fact that he was not, after all, a hired cicerone, but an ancient Roman gentleman.  Rowland felt sorry for him; he hardly knew why.  He assured him in a friendly fashion that he must come again; that his house was always at his service.  The Cavaliere bowed down to the ground.  “You do me too much honor,” he murmured.  “If you will allow me—­it is not impossible!”

Mrs. Light, meanwhile, had prepared to depart.  “If you are not afraid to come and see two quiet little women, we shall be most happy!” she said.  “We have no statues nor pictures—­we have nothing but each other.  Eh, darling?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Christina.

“Oh, and the Cavaliere,” added her mother.

“The poodle, please!” cried the young girl.

Rowland glanced at the Cavaliere; he was smiling more blandly than ever.

A few days later Rowland presented himself, as civility demanded, at Mrs. Light’s door.  He found her living in one of the stately houses of the Via dell’ Angelo Custode, and, rather to his surprise, was told she was at home.  He passed through half a dozen rooms and was ushered into an immense saloon, at one end of which sat the mistress of the establishment, with a piece of embroidery.  She received him very graciously, and then, pointing mysteriously to a large screen which was unfolded across the embrasure of one of the deep windows, “I am keeping guard!” she said.  Rowland looked interrogative; whereupon she beckoned him forward and motioned him to look behind the screen.  He obeyed, and for some moments stood gazing.  Roderick, with his back turned, stood before an extemporized pedestal, ardently shaping a formless mass of clay.  Before him sat Christina Light, in a white dress, with her shoulders bare, her magnificent hair twisted into a classic coil, and her head admirably poised.  Meeting Rowland’s gaze, she smiled a little, only with her deep gray eyes, without moving.  She looked divinely beautiful.