The Point of View | Page 4

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?"
"We have only been to the Vatican as yet," Stella answered
timidly--she was still much perturbed at the whole incident, but now
that she had begun she determined she might as well be hung for a
sheep as a lamb, and she was conscious that there was a strong
attraction in the mild blue eyes of the stranger. His manner had a
complete repose and absence of self-consciousness, which usually is
only to be found in the people of race--in any nation.
"You were taken to the Sistine Chapel, of course," he went on, "and to
the loggia and Bramant's staircase? You saw some statues, too,
perhaps?"
"My uncle and aunt do not care much for sculpture," Miss Rawson said,
now regaining her composure, "but I like it--even better than pictures."
The stranger kept his steady eyes fixed upon her face all the time.
"I have a nymph in my house at home," he returned. "She came
originally from Rome; she is not Greek and she is very like you, the
same droop of head--I remarked it immediately--I am superstitous--I
suppose you would call what I mean by that word-- and I knew directly
that some day you, too, would mean things to me. That is why I
spoke--do you feel it, too?"
Stella Rawson quivered. The incredible situation paralyzed her.
She--the Aunt Caroline's niece, and engaged to Eustace Medlicott, the
Bishop's junior chaplain, to be listening to a grotesque- looking
foreigner making subtle speeches of an insinuating character, and, far
from feeling scandalized and repulsed, to be conscious that she was
thrilled and interested--it was hardly to be believed!
"Will you tell me from where you come?" she asked with sweet
bashfulness, raising two eyes as soft as brown velvet. "You speak
English so very well--one cannot guess."

"I am a Russian," he said simply. "I come from near Moscow--and my
name is Sasha Roumovski, Count Roumovski. Yours, I am aware, is
Rawson, but I would like to know how you are called--Mary, perhaps?
That is English."
"No, my name is not Mary," she answered, and froze a little--but the
Russian's eyes continued to gaze