The Point of View | Page 9

man's dark night--because you have a pure
spirit, although it has been muffled by circumstances for all these
years."
Then the automobile drew up by the trees, at perhaps two hundred
yards from the hotel, near the baths of Diocletian.
"If you will get out here, it will be best," Count Roumovski told her
respectfully, "and walk along on the inner side. I will then drive to the
door of the hotel, as usual."
"Thank you, and good-bye," said Stella, and began untying the veil--he
helped her at once, and in doing so his hand touched her soft pink

cheek. She thrilled with a new kind of mad enjoyment, the like of
which she had never felt, and then controlled herself and stamped it
out.
"It has been a very great pleasure to me," he said, and nothing more; no
"good-bye" or "au revoir" or anything, and he drew into the far corner
as she got out of the car, letting the chauffeur help her. Nor did he look
her way as he drove on. And Stella walked leisurely back to the hotel,
wondering in her heart at the meaning of things.
No one noticed her entrance, and she was able to begin to dress for
dinner without even Martha being aware that she had been absent. But
as she descended in the lift with her uncle and aunt it seemed as if the
whole world and life itself were changed since the same time the night
before.
And when they were entering the restaurant a telegram was put into
Canon Ebley's hand--it was from the Rev. Eustace Medlicott, sent from
Turin, saying he would join them in Rome the following evening.
"Eustace has been preparing this delightful surprise--I knew of it," the
Aunt Caroline said, with conscious pride, "but I would not tell you,
Stella, dear, in case something might prevent it. I feared to disappoint
you."
"Thank you, aunt," Miss Rawson said without too much enthusiasm,
and took her seat where she could see the solitary occupant of a small
table, surrounded by the obsequious waiters, already sipping his
champagne.
He had not looked up as they passed. Nor did he appear once to glance
in their direction. His whole manner was full of the same reflective
calm as the night before. And, for some unaccountable reason, Stella
Rawson's heart sank down lower and lower, until at the end of the
repast she looked pale and tired out.
Eustace, her betrothed, would be there on the morrow, and such things
as drives in motor cars with strange Russian counts were only dreams

and not realities, she now felt.

CHAPTER III
Next morning it fell about that Stella Rawson was allowed to go into
the Musso Nazionale in the Diocletian baths, accompanied only by
Martha, her uncle and aunt having decided they would take a rest and
write their English letters. The museum was so near, a mere hundred
yards, there could be no impropriety in their niece's going there with
Martha, even in an exhibition year in Rome.
Stella was still suffering from a nameless sense of depression. Eustace's
train would get in at about five o'clock, and he would accompany them
to the Embassy. A cousin of her own and Aunt Caroline's was one of
the secretaries, and had already been written to about the invitation. So
that even if Count Roumovski should be presented to her, and make the
whole thing proper and correct, she would have no chance of any
conversation. The brilliant sunlight felt incongruous and hurt her, and
she was glad to enter the shady ancient baths. She had glanced furtively
to right and left in the hotel as she came through the hall, but saw no
one who resembled the Russian, and they had walked so quickly
through the vestibule she had not remarked a tall figure coming from
the staircase, nor had seen him give some rapid order to a respectful
servant who was waiting about, and who instantly followed them: but if
she had looked up as she paid for the two tickets at the barrier of the
museum, she would have seen this same lean man turn swiftly round
and retreat in the direction of the hotel.
Martha was sulky and comatose on this very warm morning; she took
no interest in sculpture. "Them naked creatures," she called any
masterpiece undraped--and she resented being dragged out by Miss
Stella, who always had fancies for art.
They walked round the cloisters first, a voyage of discovery to Miss
Rawson, who looked a slim enough nymph herself in her lilac cambric
frock and demure gray hat shading her big brown eyes.

Then suddenly, from across the garden in the center, she became aware
that an archaic Apollo clad in modern dress had entered