“I do wish Eustace would not talk such cant,” she said to herself.  “Even in this he is unable to be natural—­and I am sure I shall not feel a thing like he describes when I stand in St. Peter’s.  I believe I would rather go into the Pantheon.  I seem to be tired of everything I ought to like to-day!” And still rebellious she got up and was taken by her uncle and aunt to the Vatican—­and was allowed to linger only in the parts which interested them.

“I never have had a taste for sculpture,” Mrs. Ebley said.  “People may call it what names they please, but I consider it immoral and indecent.”

“A wonder to me,” the Uncle Erasmus joined in, “that a prelate—­ even a prelate of Rome—­should have countenanced the housing of all these unclothed marbles in his own private palace.”

Stella Rawson stopped for a second in front of an archaic Apollo of no great merit—­because it reminded her of the unknown; and she wished with all her might something new and swift and rushing might come into her humdrum life.

After luncheon, for which they returned to the hotel, she wearily went over to the writing-table in the corner of the hall to answer her lover’s chaste effusion—­and saw that the low armchair beside the escritoire was tenanted by a pair of long legs with singularly fine silk socks showing upon singularly fine ankles—­and a pair of strong slender hands held a newspaper in front of the rest of the body, concealing it all and the face.  It was the English Times, which, as everybody knows, could hide Gargantua himself.

She began her letter—­and not a rustle disturbed her peace.

“Dearest Eustace,” she had written, “we have arrived in Rome—­” and then she stopped, and fixed her eyes blankly upon the column of births, marriages, and deaths.  She was staring at it with sightless eyes, when the paper was slowly lowered and over its top the blue orbs of the stranger looked into hers.

Her pretty color became the hue of a bright pink rose.  “Mademoiselle,” a very deep voice said in English, “is not this world full of bores and tiresome duties; have you the courage to defy them all for a few minutes—­and talk to me instead?”

“Monsieur!” Miss Rawson burst out, and half rose from her seat.  Then she sat down again—­the unknown had not stirred a muscle.

“Good,” he murmured.  “One has to be courageous to do what is unconventional, even if it is not wrong.  I am not desirous of hurting or insulting you—­I felt we might have something to say to each other—­is it so—­tell me, am I right?”

“I do not know,” whispered Stella lamely.  She was so taken aback at the preposterous fact that a stranger should have addressed her at all, even in a manner of indifference and respect, that she knew not what to do.

“I observed you last night,” he went on.  “I am accustomed to judge of character rapidly—­it is a habit I have acquired during my travels in foreign lands—­when I cannot use the standard of my own.  You are weary of a number of things, and you do not know anything at all about life, and you are hedged round with those who will see that you never learn its meaning.  Tell me—­what do you think of Rome—­it contains things and aspects which afford food for reflection, is it not so?”