both ladies appeared equally charmed with the fair man, and their countenances were radiant with pleasure and animation all the time they were in conversation with him.  When the carriage resumed its round again, the Marquis sauntered by a side path where he could take quiet observation of his apparent rival, who walked past him with a firm light step, looking handsome, happy, and amazingly confident.  There was an old man raking the path, and of him Fontenelle asked carelessly,

“Do you know who that gentleman is?”

The gardener looked up and smiled.

“Ah, si, si!  Il Signor Inglese!  Molto generoso!  Il Signor Aubri Lee!”

Aubrey Leigh!  A “celebrity” then,—­an English author;—­not that all English authors are considered “celebrities” in Rome.  Italian society makes very short work of spurious art, and closes its doors ruthlessly against mere English “Grub Street”.  But Aubrey Leigh was more than an author,—­he was an influential power in the world, as the Marquis well knew.

“A great religious reformer!  And yet a victim to the little Sylvie!” he mused, “Well!  The two things will not work together.  Though truly Sylvie would captivate a John Knox or a Cromwell.  I really think,—­I really do begin to think, that rather than lose her altogether, I must marry her!”

And he went back to the obscure hotel where he had chosen temporarily to reside in a meditative mood, and as he entered, was singularly annoyed to see a flaring poster outside, announcing the arrival of Miraudin and his whole French Company in Rome for a few nights only.  The name “Miraudin” glared at him in big, fat, red letters on a bright yellow ground; and involuntarily he muttered,

“D—­n the fellow!  Can I go nowhere in the world without coming across him!”

Irritated, and yet knowing his irritation to be foolish,—­for after all, what was the famous actor to him?—­what was there in his personality to annoy him beyond the trivial fact of a curious personal resemblance?—­he retired to his room in no pleasant humour, and sitting down began to write a letter to Sylvie asking her to be his wife.  Yet somehow the power of expression seemed lacking, and once or twice he laid down his pen in a fit of abstraction, wondering why, when he had sought Sylvie as a lover only, he had been able to write the most passionate love phrases, full of ardour and poetry, and now, when he was about to make her the offer of his whole life, his sentences were commonplace and almost cold.  And presently he tore up what he had been writing, and paced the room impatiently.

“The fact is I shall make a bad husband, and I know it!” he said candidly to himself, “And Sylvie will make a great mistake if she accepts me!”