sed with the rupture, for the continuance of
the connection might have proved embarrassing; and so, although his
vanity may have been slightly hurt, the news that he was already replaced
in La Tonietta's affections was welcome rather than otherwise. "Ah!" he
contented himself with saying, "the absent are always in the wrong."

"The man one loves is never absent," declared Celia with her grave,
candid air.

However, Benedetta had stepped up to the bed to raise the young man's
pillows: "Never mind, Dario _mio_," said she, "all those things are over;
I mean to keep you, and you will only have me to love."

He gave her a passionate glance and kissed her hair. She spoke the truth:
he had never loved any one but her, and she was not mistaken in her
anticipation of keeping him always to herself alone, as soon as they
should be wedded. To her great delight, since she had been nursing him he
had become quite childish again, such as he had been when she had learnt
to love him under the orange-trees of the Villa Montefiori. He retained a
sort of puerility, doubtless the outcome of impoverished blood, that
return to childhood which one remarks amongst very ancient races; and he
toyed on his bed with pictures, gazed for hours at photographs, which
made him laugh. Moreover, his inability to endure suffering had yet
increased; he wished Benedetta to be gay and sing, and amused her with
his petty egotism which led him to dream of a life of continual joy with
her. Ah! how pleasant it would be to live together and for ever in the
sunlight, to do nothing and care for nothing, and even if the world
should crumble somewhere to heed it not!

"One thing which greatly pleases me," suddenly said the young Prince, "is
that Monsieur l'Abbe has ended by falling in love with Rome."

Pierre admitted it with a good grace.

"We told you so," remarked Benedetta. "A great deal of time is needed for
one to understand and love Rome. If you had only stayed here for a
fortnight you would have gone off with a deplorable idea of us, but now
that you have been here for two full months we are quite at ease, for you
will never think of us without affection."

She looked exceedingly charming as she spoke these words, and Pierre
again bowed. However, he had already given thought to the phenomenon, and
fancied he could explain it. When a stranger comes to Rome he brings with
him a Rome of his own, a Rome such as he dreams of, so ennobled by
imagination that