of this
horrible place!"

He helped her back into the corridor; Roderick followed after a short
interval. Of course, as they were descending the steps, came questions
for Rowland to answer, and more or less surprise. Where had he come
from? how happened he to have appeared at just that moment? Rowland
answered that he had been rambling overhead, and that, looking out of an
aperture, he had seen a gentleman preparing to undertake a preposterous
gymnastic feat, and a lady swooning away in consequence. Interference
seemed justifiable, and he had made it as prompt as possible. Roderick
was far from hanging his head, like a man who has been caught in the
perpetration of an extravagant folly; but if he held it more erect than
usual Rowland believed that this was much less because he had made
a show of personal daring than because he had triumphantly proved to
Christina that, like a certain person she had dreamed of, he too could
speak the language of decision. Christina descended to the arena in
silence, apparently occupied with her own thoughts. She betrayed
no sense of the privacy of her interview with Roderick needing an
explanation. Rowland had seen stranger things in New York! The only
evidence of her recent agitation was that, on being joined by her maid,
she declared that she was unable to walk home; she must have a carriage.
A fiacre was found resting in the shadow of the Arch of Constantine,
and Rowland suspected that after she had got into it she disburdened
herself, under her veil, of a few natural tears.

Rowland had played eavesdropper to so good a purpose that he might
justly have omitted the ceremony of denouncing himself to Roderick. He
preferred, however, to let him know that he had overheard a portion of
his talk with Christina.

"Of course it seems to you," Roderick said, "a proof that I am utterly
infatuated."

"Miss Light seemed to me to know very well how far she could go,"
Rowland answered. "She was twisting you round her finger. I don't think
she exactly meant to defy you; but your crazy pursuit of that flower
was a proof that she could go all lengths in the way of making a fool of
you."

"Yes," said Roderick, meditatively; "she is making a fool of me."

"And what do you expect to come of it?"

"Nothing good!" And Roderick put his hands into his pockets and looked
as if he had announced the most colorless fact in the world.

"And in the light of your late interview, what do you make of your y