Rowland met the two ladies, about this time, at several entertainments, and looked at Christina with a kind of distant attendrissement.  He imagined more than once that there had been a passionate scene between them about coming out, and wondered what arguments Mrs. Light had found effective.  But Christina’s face told no tales, and she moved about, beautiful and silent, looking absently over people’s heads, barely heeding the men who pressed about her, and suggesting somehow that the soul of a world-wearied mortal had found its way into the blooming body of a goddess.  “Where in the world has Miss Light been before she is twenty,” observers asked, “to have left all her illusions behind?” And the general verdict was, that though she was incomparably beautiful, she was intolerably proud.  Young ladies to whom the former distinction was not conceded were free to reflect that she was “not at all liked.”

It would have been difficult to guess, however, how they reconciled this conviction with a variety of conflicting evidence, and, in especial, with the spectacle of Roderick’s inveterate devotion.  All Rome might behold that he, at least, “liked” Christina Light.  Wherever she appeared he was either awaiting her or immediately followed her.  He was perpetually at her side, trying, apparently, to preserve the thread of a disconnected talk, the fate of which was, to judge by her face, profoundly immaterial to the young lady.  People in general smiled at the radiant good faith of the handsome young sculptor, and asked each other whether he really supposed that beauties of that quality were meant to wed with poor artists.  But although Christina’s deportment, as I have said, was one of superb inexpressiveness, Rowland had derived from Roderick no suspicion that he suffered from snubbing, and he was therefore surprised at an incident which befell one evening at a large musical party.  Roderick, as usual, was in the field, and, on the ladies taking the chairs which had been arranged for them, he immediately placed himself beside Christina.  As most of the gentlemen were standing, his position made him as conspicuous as Hamlet at Ophelia’s feet, at the play.  Rowland was leaning, somewhat apart, against the chimney-piece.  There was a long, solemn pause before the music began, and in the midst of it Christina rose, left her place, came the whole length of the immense room, with every one looking at her, and stopped before him.  She was neither pale nor flushed; she had a soft smile.

“Will you do me a favor?” she asked.

“A thousand!”

“Not now, but at your earliest convenience.  Please remind Mr. Hudson that he is not in a New England village—­that it is not the custom in Rome to address one’s conversation exclusively, night after night, to the same poor girl, and that"....

The music broke out with a great blare and covered her voice.  She made a gesture of impatience, and Rowland offered her his arm and led her back to her seat.