sweat broke out upon her forehead. His
persistence frightened her.

He waited for an answer, and receiving none, added, "Well, I will come
again," and so went away.

She stayed in until it was time to go to Varini's. It was not far, but
she was flushed and panting with the haste that she had made as she
put on the faded blue silk dress that had been laid out ready for her
on the one broken chair in the dressing-room. Rosina came in to her
presently from the professor's studio. She wore a man's tweed coat and
a striped blanket wrapped about her, and she was smoking a cigarette.

"So you have come back to work here. Your signorino at the Villa
Medici is away?"

"Only for a few days. He will not be gone long. The picture is not
finished. How is Pasquina?"

Rosina had come over to her and was fastening the hooks of her bodice.
"She is very well. How pretty you are." She rearranged the laces at
the girl's breast and caught up a torn piece of the silk with a pin.
"That is better. Have you been running? You seem hot."

"Oh, Rosina, I have been frightened. A man followed me. I shall be
afraid to go home to-night."

The yellow-haired Trasteverina looked at her shrewdly. "He knows where
you live? Have you only seen him once?"

"He--he came and tried my door. I am afraid of him."

Rosina nodded. "_Si capisce!_ I will take care of you. I have met so
many _mascalzoni_ in twenty years that I have grown used to them. I
will come home with you, and if any man so much as looks at us I will
scratch his eyes out."

Through the thin partition wall they heard the professor calling for
his model. "I must go," she said hurriedly, but as she passed out
Olive caught at a fold of the enveloping blanket.

"Come here, I want you." She flung her arms about the other girl's
neck and kissed her. "You are good! You are good!"

She went into the class room and climbed the throne as the men came
clattering in to take their places. The professor posed her.

"So you have come back to us. Do not let them spoil you at the Villa
Medici--your head a little higher--so."

The first drawing in of the figure is not a thing to be taken lightly,
and the silence was seldom broken at Varini's on Monday evenings. The
two boys, however, found it hard to repress the natural loquacity of
their extreme youth.

"_Al lavoro_, Mario! What are you whispering about? Cesare, _zitto_!"
Bembi stared at them. "Their chins are disappearing," he said. "See
their