He asked the question quite naturally, as if he had known Sabina all his life.  At first she was so much surprised that she could hardly speak.

“I—­I do not know,” she stammered.

She had never received letters from any one but her own family or her school friends, and a very faint colour rose in her pale cheek.  Malipieri looked more bored and weary than ever.

“It may be absolutely necessary for me to write to you before long,” he said.  “Shall I write by post?”

Sabina hesitated.

“Is there no one in all Rome whom you can trust to bring a note and give it to you when you are alone?”

“There is Signor Sassi,” Sabina answered almost instinctively.  “But really, why should you—­”

“How can I find Sassi?” asked Malipieri, interrupting the question.  “Who is he?”

“He was our agent.  Is he gone?  The old porter will know where to find him.  I think he lived near the palace.  But perhaps the porter has been sent away too.”

“He is still there.  Have you been made to sign any papers since you have been here?”

“No.”

“Will you promise me something?”

Sabina could not understand how it was that a man who had been a stranger two hours earlier was speaking to her almost as if he were an intimate friend, still less why she no longer felt that she ought to check him and assert her dignity.

“If it is right, I will promise it,” she answered quietly, and looking down.

“It is right,” he said.  “If the Senator, or any one else asks you to sign a paper, will you promise to consult me before doing so?”

“But I hardly know you!” she laughed, a little shyly.

“It is of no use to waste time and trouble on social conventions,” said Malipieri.  “If you do not trust me, can you trust this Sassi?”

“Oh yes!”

“Then consult him.  I will make him consult me, and it will be the same—­and ten times more conventional and proper.”

He smiled.

“Will you promise that?” he asked.

“Yes.  I promise.  But I wish you would tell me more.”

“I wish I could.  But I hardly know you!” He smiled again, as he repeated her own words.

“Never mind that!  Tell me!”

“No.  I cannot.  If there is trouble I will tell you everything—­through Sassi, of course.”

Sabina laughed, and all at once she felt as if she had known him for years.

At that moment the deputy finished his speech, and all who had anything to say in answer said it at once, in order to lose no time, while the speaker relighted his villainous black cigar, puffing tremendously.

The Baroness suddenly remembered Sabina and Malipieri in the corner, and after screaming out several incoherent phrases, which might have been taken for applause or dissent and were almost lost in the general din, she moved across the room.

“It is atrocious!” she cried, as she reached Sabina.  “I hope you have not heard a word he said!”