der these
circumstances, equally unbecoming for Rowland either to depreciate or
to defend Christina, and he had to content himself with simply having
verified the girl's own assurance that she had made a bad impression.
He tried to talk of indifferent matters--about the statues and the
frescoes; but to-day, plainly, aesthetic curiosity, with Miss Garland,
had folded its wings. Curiosity of another sort had taken its place.
Mary was longing, he was sure, to question him about Christina; but she
found a dozen reasons for hesitating. Her questions would imply that
Roderick had not treated her with confidence, for information on this
point should properly have come from him. They would imply that she was
jealous, and to betray her jealousy was intolerable to her pride. For
some minutes, as she sat scratching the brilliant pavement with the
point of her umbrella, it was to be supposed that her pride and her
anxiety held an earnest debate. At last anxiety won.

"A propos of Miss Light," she asked, "do you know her well?"

"I can hardly say that. But I have seen her repeatedly."

"Do you like her?"

"Yes and no. I think I am sorry for her."

Mary had spoken with her eyes on the pavement. At this she looked up.
"Sorry for her? Why?"

"Well--she is unhappy."

"What are her misfortunes?"

"Well--she has a horrible mother, and she has had a most injurious
education."

For a moment Miss Garland was silent. Then, "Is n't she very beautiful?"
she asked.

"Don't you think so?"

"That 's measured by what men think! She is extremely clever, too."

"Oh, incontestably."

"She has beautiful dresses."

"Yes, any number of them."

"And beautiful manners."

"Yes--sometimes."

"And plenty of money."

"Money enough, apparently."

"And she receives great admiration."

"Very true."

"And she is to marry a prince."

"So they say."

Miss Garland rose and turned to rejoin her companions, commenting these
admissions with a pregnant silence. "Poor Miss Light!" she said at
last, simply. And in this it seemed to Rowland there was a touch of
bitterness.

Very late on the following evening his servant brought him the card of a
visitor. He was surprised at a visit at such an hour, but it may be
said that when he read the inscription--Cavaliere Giuseppe Giacosa--his
surprise declined. He had had an unformulated conviction that there was
to be a sequel to the apparition at Madame Grandoni's; the Cavaliere had
come to usher