to go away with him she had felt that
it might be worth while, that it would be pleasant to be cared for and
loved, to eat and drink and die on the morrow, but the man himself had
been nothing to her. A means to an end.

She had been wholly a creature of blind instincts, the will to live,
to creep out of the dark into the sunshine that is inherent in the
animal, fighting against that other impulse, trying to root up that
white fragile flower, watered throughout the centuries with blood and
tears and rare and precious ointment, that thorn in some women's
hearts, their pale ideal of inviolate purity.

The spirit had warred against the flesh, and the spirit had won then
and now. It had won, but not finally. She was dismayed to find that
temptation was a recurrent thing. Every morning when she woke it
returned to her. It would be so easy to write "Dearest, come to me."
It would be so easy to make him happy. She thought little of herself
now and much of Jean. Would he stay on with his brother or go away
again? Had she hurt him very much? Would he forget her? Or hate her?

During the day she trudged the streets of Rome and grew to know them
well. Here, as in Florence, no one wanted to pay for learning, no one
wanted an English girl for anything apparently. If she had been Swiss,
and so able to speak three languages incorrectly, she might have found
a place as nursery-governess; as it was, the people in the registry
offices grew tired of her and she was afraid to go to them too often.

There was little for her to do in the house. The old woman who came in
did the cleaning, and they lived on bread and _ricotta_ cheese and a
cabbage soup that was easily prepared, but sometimes she was able to
help with the sewing, and now and then she was allowed to take the
finished work home.

"It is not fit! They will take you for an apprentice, a _sartina_."

Olive laughed rather mirthlessly at that. "I am not proud," she said.

"I sat up until two last night to finish the Contessa's dress. She is
always in a hurry. If only she would pay what she owes," sighed the
dressmaker.

Olive promised to bring the money back with her, and she waited a long
while in the stuffy passage of the Contessa's flat. There were
imitation Abyssinian trophies on the walls, lances and daggers and
shields of lathe and cardboard and painted paper. The husband was an
artillery captain, and his sword stood with the umbrellas in the rack,
the only real thing