with another man.
Don't you see what that woman is doing? She has been doing it all along,
and like a simpleton you've been helping her. You've been flinging away
your chances with this Rossi and making yourself impossible to the
Minister."

Roma tossed her head and answered:

"I don't care if I have, Aunt Betsy. I'm not of the same mind as I used
to be, and I think no longer that the holiest things are to be bought
and sold like so much merchandise."

The old lady, who had been bending forward in her vehemence, fell back
on the pillow.

"You'll kill me!" she cried. "Where did you learn such folly? Goodness
knows I've done my best by you. I have tried to teach you your duty to
the baron and to society. But all this comes of admitting these
anarchists into the house. You can't help it, though. It's in your
blood. Your father before you...."

Crimson and trembling from head to foot, Roma turned suddenly and left
the room. Natalina and Felice were listening on the other side of the
door.

But not even this jarring incident could break the spell of Roma's
enchantment, and when dinner was over, and she had gone to the studio
and closed the door, the whole world seemed to be shut out, and nothing
was of the slightest consequence.

Taking the damp cloth from the bust, she looked at her work again. In
the light of the aurora she now lived in, the head she had wrought with
so much labour was poor and inadequate. It did not represent the
original. It was weak and wrong.

She set to work again, and little by little the face in the clay began
to change. Not Peter any longer, Peter the disciple, but Another. It was
audacious, it was shocking, but no matter. She was not afraid.

Time passed, but she did not heed it. She was working at lightning
speed, and with a power she had never felt before.

Night came on, and the old Rome, the Rome of the Popes, repossessed
itself of the Eternal City. The silent streets, the dark patches, the
luminous piazzas, the three lights on the loggia of the Vatican, the
grey ghost of the great dome, the kind stars, the sweet moon, and the
church bells striking one by one during the noiseless night.

At length she became aware of a streak of light on the floor. It was
coming through the shutters of the window. She threw them open, and the
breeze of morning came up from the orange trees in the garden below. The
day was dawning over the sleepy city. Convent bells were ringing for
matins, but a