The Point of View | Page 8

you in that veil
and that cloak; believe me, although I am not of your country, I am at
least a gentleman, and would not have persuaded you to come if there
had been any danger of complications for you."
Stella clasped her hands convulsively--and he drew a little nearer her.
"Do put all agitating ideas out of your mind," he said, his blue eyes,
with their benign expression, seeking hers and compelling them at last
to look at him. "Do you understand that it is foolish to spoil what we
have by useless tremors. You are here with me-- for the next
hour--shall we not try to be happy?"
"Yes," murmured Miss Rawson, and allowed herself to be magnetized
into calmness.
"When we have passed the Piazza del Popolo and the entrance to the
Pincio, I will have the car opened; then we can see all the charming
young green, and I will tell you of what these gardens were long ago,
and you shall see them with new eyes."
Stella, by some sort of magic, seemed to have recovered her self-
possession as his eyes looked into hers, and she chatted to him
naturally, and the next half hour passed like some fairy tale. His deep,
quiet voice took her into realms of fancy that her imagination had never

even dreamed about. His cultivation was immense, and the Rome of the
Caesars appeared to be as familiar to him as that of 1911.
The great beauty of the Borghese Gardens was at its height at the end
of the day, the nightingales throbbed from the bushes, and the air was
full of the fresh, exquisite scents of the late spring, as the day grew
toward evening and all nature seemed full of beauty and peace. It can
easily be imagined what this drive meant, then, to a fine, sensitive
young woman, whose every instinct of youth and freedom and life had
been crushed into undeveloped nothingness by years of gray
convention in an old-fashioned English cathedral town.
Stella Rawson forgot that she and this Russian were strangers, and she
talked to him unrestrainedly, showing glimpses of her inner self that
she had not known she possessed. It was certainly heaven, she thought,
this drive, and worth all the Aunt Caroline's frowns.
Count Roumovski never said a word of love to her: he treated her with
perfect courtesy and infinite respect, but when at last they were turning
back again, he permitted himself once more to gaze deeply into her
eyes, and Stella knew for the first time in her existence that some
silences are more dangerous than words.
"You do not care at all now for the good clergy-man you are affianced
to," he said. "No--do not be angry-I am not asking a question, I am
stating a fact--when lives have been hedged and controlled and retenu
like yours has been, even the feelings lose character, and you cannot be
sure of them--but the day is approaching when you will see clearly
and--feel much."
"I am sure it is getting very late," said Stella Rawson, and with
difficulty she turned her eyes away and looked over the green world.
Count Roumovski laughed softly, as if to himself. And they were silent
until they came to the entrance gates again, when the chauffeur stopped
and shut the car.
"We have at least snatched some moments of pleasure, have we not?"

the owner whispered, "and we have hurt no one. Will you trust me
again when I propose something which sounds to you wild?"
"Perhaps I will," Stella murmured rather low.
"When I was hunting lions in Africa I learned to keep my intelligence
awake," he said calmly, "it is an advantage to me now in
civilization--nothing is impossible if one only keeps cool. If one
becomes agitated one instantly connects oneself with all other currents
of agitation, and one can no longer act with prudence or sense."
"I think I have always been very foolish," admitted Stella, looking
down. "I seem to see everything differently now."
"What we are all striving after is happiness," Count Roumovski said.
"Only we will not admit it, and nearly always spoil our own chances by
drifting, and allowing outside things to influence us. If you could see
the vast plains of snow in my country and the deep forests--with never
a human being for miles and miles, you would understand how nature
grows to talk to one--and how small the littlenesses of the world
appear." Then they were silent again, and it was not until they were
rushing up the Via Nazionale and in a moment or two would have
reached their destination, that Count Roumovski said:
"Stella--that means star--it is a beautiful name--I can believe you could
be a star to shine upon any