Stella looked up startled.  Was this indeed true?  And was it simply convention which had forced her into an engagement with Eustace Medlicott, and now forced her to go up and put on her hat and accompany her uncle and aunt to see the Lateran, when she would have preferred to remain where she was and discuss abstract matters with this remarkable stranger.

“The notion surprises you, one sees,” Count Roumovski went on, “but it is true—­”

“I suppose it is,” said Stella lamely.

“I submit to no authority—­I mean, as to the controlling of my actions and wishes.  We must all submit to the laws of our country, to do so is the only way to obtain complete personal freedom.”

“That sounds like a paradox,” said Stella.

“I have just been thinking,” he went on, without noticing the interruption, “it would be most agreeable to take a drive in my automobile late this after-noon, when your guardians have returned and are resting.  If you feel you would care to come I will wait in this hall from five to six.  You need not take the least notice of me, you can walk past, out of the hotel, then turn to the left, and there in the square, where there are a few trees, you will see a large blue motor waiting.  You will get straight in, and I will come and join you.  Not anyone will see or notice you—­because of the trees, one cannot observe from the windows.  My chauffeur will be prepared, and I will return you safely to the same place in an hour.”

Stella’s brown eyes grew larger and larger.  Some magnetic spell seemed to be dominating her, the idea was preposterous, and yet to agree to it was the strongest temptation she had ever had in all her life.  She was filled with a wild longing to live, to do what she pleased, to be free to enjoy this excitement before her wings should be clipped, and her outlook all gray and humdrum.

“I do not know if they will rest—­I cannot say—­I—­” she blurted out tremblingly.

The stranger had put down the Times, and was gazing into her face with a look almost of tenderness.

“There is no need to answer now,” he said softly.  “If fate means us to be happy, she will arrange it—­I think you will come.”

Miss Rawson started to her feet, and absently put her letter to her fiance—­which contained merely the sentence that they had arrived in Rome—­into its envelope and fastened it up.

“I must go now—­good-bye,” she said.

“It is not good-bye,” the Russian answered gravely.  “By six o’clock, we shall be driving in the Borghese Gardens and hearing the nightingales sing.”

As Stella walked to the lift with a tumultuously beating heart, she asked herself what all this could possibly mean, and why she was not angry—­and why this stranger—­whose appearance outraged all her ideas as to what an English gentleman should look like—­ had yet the power to fascinate her completely.  Of course, she would not go for a drive with him—­and yet, what would be the harm?  After September she would never have a chance like this again.  There would be only Eustace Medlicott and parish duties—­ yes—­if fate made it possible, she would go!