“I have seen the consul this afternoon.  It will take three weeks, I am afraid, before we can be legally married here in Rome.  It seems an eternity to me.”

“Yes,” agreed Stella, and suddenly looked down.  She wished intensely that he would caress her a little—­although she was unaware of the desire.  She wondered vaguely—­was it then very wicked to make love, since Sasha, too, like Eustace, seemed as if he were resisting something with all his strength?  And unconsciously she pouted her red underlip, and Count Roumovski moved convulsively.

“My sister’s room is next to this,” he said, “and yours is beyond.  I have had only roses put there, because you are like a sweet June rose.”

“Am I?” said Miss Rawson, and raised her head.  She had grown extremely excited and disappointed, and, she knew not what, only that she did not like this new lover of hers to be sitting there constrained and aloof, talking in a stiff voice unlike his usual easy grace.  It was perfectly ridiculous to have run away with some one with whom she was passionately in love, if he were going to remain as cold as ice!

She got up and took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her dress.  The whole movement and action had the unconscious coquetry of a woman’s methods to gain her end.  Totally unaccustomed as Stella was to all artifices, instinct was her teacher.

Sasha Roumovski rose suddenly.

“Come and sit here beside me again, heart of mine,” he commanded with imperious love, and indicated the stiff Louis XIV sofa.  “I must explain everything to you, it would seem.”

Stella had never heard this tone in his voice before; it caused her strange delight, and she shyly took her seat at one end of the sofa, and then, as he flung himself down beside her, she looked up at him.

“What must you explain?” she asked.

“First, that I love you madly, that it is sickening temptation to be with you now every instant without holding you in my arms,” and his voice trembled, while his blue eyes glowed.  “That I do not know how to resist the wild passion which is overcoming me.  I want to kiss you so terribly, more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”

“We-ll?” said Stella, with a quiver of exquisite joy.  “And—­” she had almost spoken her thought of, “Why do you not do so, then?”—­ but the burning passion she read in his made her drop her eyes.  This was too much for him.  He understood perfectly, and, with a little cry, he drew her to him, and his lips had almost touched her red, young, pouting lips when he suddenly controlled himself and put her from him.

“No, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely, “you would never respect me any more if I took advantage of your tenderness now.  As soon—­as soon as I really may, I will teach you every shade of love and its meanings.  I will kiss those lips and unloosen that hair; I will suffocate you with caresses and make you thrill as I shall thrill until we both forget everything in the intoxication of bliss,” and he half-closed his eyes, and his face grew pale again with suppressed emotion.