Chapter V: Part THREE: Roma (1)

I

The Piazza of Trinità de' Monti takes its name from a church and convent which stand on the edge of the Pincian Hill.

A flight of travertine steps, twisted and curved to mask the height, goes down from the church to a diagonal piazza, the Piazza di Spagna, which is always bright with the roses of flower-sellers, who build their stalls around a fountain.

At the top of these steps there stands a house, four-square to all winds, and looking every way over Rome. The sun rises and sets on it, the odour of the flowers comes up to it from the piazza, and the music of the band comes down to it from the Pincio. Donna Roma occupied two floors of this house. One floor, the lower one, built on arches and entered from the side of the city, was used as a studio, the other was as a private apartment.

Donna Roma's home consisted of ten or twelve rooms on the second floor, opening chiefly out of a central drawing-room, which was furnished in red and yellow damask, papered with velvet wall-papers, and lighted by lamps of Venetian glass representing lilies in rose-colour and violet. Her bedroom, which looked to the Quirinal, was like the nest of a bird in its pale-blue satin, with its blue silk counterpane and its embroidered cushion at the foot of the bed; and her boudoir, which looked to the Vatican, was full of vases of malachite and the skins of wild animals, and had a bronze clock on the chimney-piece set in a statue of Mephistopheles. The only other occupant of her house, besides her servants, was a distant kinswoman, called her aunt, and known to familiars as the Countess Betsy; but in the studio below, which was connected with the living rooms by a circular staircase, and hung round with masks, busts, and weapons, there was Bruno Rocco, her marble-pointer, the friend and housemate of David Rossi.

On the morning after Donna Roma's visit to the Piazza Navona a letter came from the Baron. He was sending Felice to be her servant. "The man is a treasure and sees nothing," he wrote. And he added in a footnote: "Don't look at the newspapers this morning, my child; and if any of them send to you say nothing."

But Roma had scarcely finished her coffee and roll when a lady journalist was announced. It was Lena, the rival of Olga both in literature and love.

"I'm 'Penelope,'" she said. "'Penelope' of the _Day_, you know. Come to see if you have anything to say in answer to the Deputy Rossi's speech yesterday. Our editor is anxious to give you every opportunity; and if you would like to reply through me to Olga's shameful libels.... Haven't you seen her article? Here it is. Disgraceful insinuations. No lady could allow them to pass unnoticed."

"Nevertheless," said Roma, "that is what I intend to do. Good-morning!"

Lena had barely crossed the doorstep when a more important person drove up. This was the Senator Palomba, Mayor of Rome, a suave, oily man, with little twinkling eyes.

"Come to offer you my sympathy, my dear! Scandalous libels. Liberty of the press, indeed! Disgraceful! It's in all the newspapers--I've brought them with me. One journal actually points at you personally. See--'A lady sculptor who has recently secured a commission from the Municipality through the influence of a distinguished person.' Most damaging, isn't it? The elections so near, too! We must publicly deny the statement. Ah, don't be alarmed! Only way out of a nest of hornets. Nothing like diplomacy, you know. Of course the Municipality will buy your fountain just the same, but I thought I would come round and explain before publishing anything."

Roma said nothing, and the great man backed himself out with the air of one who had conferred a favour, but before going he had a favour to ask in return.

"It's rumoured this morning, my dear, that the Government is about to organise a system of secret police--and quite right, too. You remember my nephew, Charles Minghelli? I brought him here when he came from Paris. Well, Charles would like to be at the head of the new force. The very man! Finds out everything that happens, from the fall of a pin to an attempt at revolution, and if Donna Roma will only say a word for him.... Thanks!... What a beautiful bust! Yours, of course? A masterpiece! Fit to put beside the masterpieces of old Rome."

The Mayor was not yet out of the drawing-room when a third visitor was in the hall. It was Madame Sella, a fashionable modiste, with social pretensions, who contrived to live on terms of quasi-intimacy with her aristocratic customers.

"Trust I am not _de trop_! I knew you wouldn't mind my calling in the morning. What a scandalous speech of that agitator yesterday! Everybody is talking about it. In fact, people say you will go away. It isn't true, is it? No? So glad! So relieved!... By the way, my dear, don't trouble about those stupid bills of mine, but ... I'm giving a little reception next week, and if the Baron would only condescend ... you'll mention it? A thousand thanks! Good-morning!"

"Count Mario," announced Felice, and an effeminate old dandy came tripping into the room. He was Roma's landlord and the Italian Ambassador at St. Petersburg.

"So good of you to see me, Donna Roma. Such an uncanonical hour, too, but I _do_ hope the Baron will not be driven to resign office on account of these malicious slanders. You think not? So pleased!"

Then stepping to the window, "What a lovely view! The finest in Rome, and that's the finest in Europe! I'm always saying if it wasn't Donna Roma I should certainly turn out my tenant and come to live here myself.... That reminds me of something. I'm ... well, I'm tired of Petersburg, and I've written to the Minister asking to be transferred to Paris, and if somebody will only whisper a word for me.... How sweet of you! Adieu!"

Roma was sick of all this insincerity, and feeling bitter against the person who had provoked it, when an unseen hand opened the door of a room on the Pincio side of the drawing-room, and the testy voice of her aunt called to her from within.

The old lady, who had just finished her morning toilet and was redolent of scented soap, reclined in a white robe on a bed-sofa with a gilded mirror on one side of her and a little shrine on the other. Her bony fingers were loaded with loose rings, and a rosary hung at her wrist. A cat was sitting at her feet, with a gold cross suspended from its ribbon.

"Ah, is it you at last? You come to me sometimes. Thanks!" she said in a withering whimper. "I thought you might have looked in last night, and I lay awake until after midnight."

"I had a headache and went to bed," said Roma.

"I never have anything else, but nobody thinks of me," said the old lady, and Roma went over to the window.

"I suppose you are as headstrong as ever, and still intend to invite that man in spite of all my protests?"

"He is to sit to me this morning, and may be here at any time."

"Just so! It's no use speaking. I don't know what girls are coming to. When I was young a man like that wouldn't have been allowed to cross the threshold of any decent house in Rome. He would have been locked up in prison instead of sitting for his bust to the ward of the Prime Minister."

"Aunt Betsy," said Roma, "I want to ask you a question."

"Be quick, then. My head is coming on as usual. Natalina! Where's Natalina?"

"Was there any quarrel between my father and his family before he left home and became an exile?"

"Certainly not! Who said there was? Quarrel indeed! His father was broken-hearted, and as for his mother, she closed the gate of the palace, and it was never opened again to the day of her death. Natalina, give me my smelling salts. And why haven't you brought the cushion for the cat?"

"Still, a man has to live his own life, and if my father thought it right...."

"Right? Do you call it right to break up a family, and, being an only son, to let a title be lost and estates go to the dogs?"

"I thought they went to the Baron, auntie."

"Roma, aren't you ashamed to sneer at me like that? At the Baron, too, in spite of all his goodness! As for your father, I'm out of patience. He wasted his wealth and his rank, and left his own flesh and blood to the mercy of others--and all for what?"

"For country, I suppose."

"For fiddlesticks! For conceit and vanity and vainglory. Go away! My head is fit to split. Natalina, why haven't you given me my smelling salts? And why will you always forget to...."

Roma left the room, but the voice of her aunt scolding the maid followed her down to the studio.

Her dog was below, and the black poodle received her with noisy demonstrations, but the humorous voice which usually saluted her with a cheery welcome she did not hear. Bruno was there, nevertheless, but silent and morose, and bending over his work with a sulky face.

She had no difficulty in understanding the change when she looked at her own work. It stood on an easel in a compartment of the studio shut off by a glass partition, and was a head of David Rossi which she had roughed out yesterday. Not yet feeling sure which of the twelve apostles around the dish of her fountain was the subject that Rossi should sit for, she had decided to experiment on a bust. It was only a sketch, but it was stamped with the emotions that had tortured her, and it showed her that unconsciously her choice had been made already. Her choice was Judas.

Last night she had laughed when looking at it, but this morning she saw that it was cruel, impossible, and treacherous. A touch or two at the clay obliterated the sinister expression, and, being unable to do more until the arrival of her sitter, she sat down to write a letter.

"MY DEAR BARON,--Thanks for Cardinal Felice. He will be a great
comfort in this household if only he can keep the peace with
Monsignor Bruno, and live in amity with the Archbishop of Porter's
Lodge. Senator Tom-tit has been here to suggest some astonishing
arrangement about my fountain, and to ask me to mention his
nephew, Charles Minghelli, as a fit and proper person to be chief
of your new department of secret police. Madame de Trop and Count
Signorina have also been, but of their modest messages more anon.

"As for D. R., my barometer is 'set fair,' but it is likely to be
a stormier time than I expected. Last night I decked myself in my
best bib and tucker, and, in defiance of all precedent, went down
to his apartment. But the strange thing was that, whereas I had
gone to find out all about _him_, I hadn't been ten minutes in his
company before he told all about _me_--about my father, at all
events, and his life in London. I believe he knew me in that
connection and expected to appeal to my filial feelings. Did too,
so strong is the force of nature, and then and thereafter, and all
night long, I was like somebody who had been shaken in an
earthquake and wanted to cry out and confess. It was not until I
remembered what my father had been--or rather hadn't--and that he
was no more to me than a name, representing exposure to the
cruellest fate a girl ever passed through, that I recovered from
the shock of D. R.'s dynamite.

"He has promised to sit to me for his bust, and is to come this
morning!--Affectionately, ROMA.

"P. S.--My gentleman has good features, fine eyes, and a wonderful
voice, and though I truly believe he trembles at the sight of a
woman and has never been in love in his life, he has an
astonishing way of getting at one. But I could laugh to think how
little execution his fusillade will make in this direction."

"Honourable Rossi!" said Felice's sepulchral voice behind her, and at that moment David Rossi stepped into the studio.

II

In spite of her protestations, Roma was nervous and confused. Putting David Rossi to sit in the arm-chair on the platform for sitters, she rattled on about everything--her clay, her tools, her sponge, and the water they had forgotten to change for her. He must not mind if she stared at him--that wasn't nice, but it was necessary--and he must promise not to look at her work while it was unfinished--children and fools, you know--the proverb was musty.

And while she talked she told herself that Thomas was the apostle he must stand for. These anarchists were all doubters, and the chief of doubters was the figure that would represent them.

David Rossi did not speak much at first, and he did not join in Roma's nervous laughter. Sometimes he looked at her with a steadfast gaze, which would have been disconcerting if it had not been so simple and childlike. At length he looked out of the window to where the city lay basking in the sunshine, and birds were swirling in the clear blue sky, and began to talk of serious subjects.

"How beautiful!" he said. "No wonder the English and Americans who come to Italy for health and the pleasure of art think it a paradise where every one should be content. And yet...."

"Yes?"

"Under the smile of this God-blessed land there is suffering such as can hardly be found in any other country of the world. Sometimes I think I cannot bear it any longer, and must go away, as others do."

"A little more this way, please--thank you! That doesn't do much for them, does it?"

"For them? No! God comfort the poor exiles--their path is a bridge of sighs! Poor, friendless, forgotten, huddled together in some dingy quarter of a foreign city, one a music-master, another a teacher of languages, a third a supernumerary at a theatre, a fourth an organ-man or even a beggar in the streets, yet weapons in the hand of God and shaking the thrones of the world!"

"_You_ have seen something of that, haven't you?"

"I have."

"In London?"

"Yes. There's an old quarter on the fringe of the fashionable district. It is called Soho. Densely populated, infested with vice, the very sewer of the city, yet an asylum of liberty for all that. The refugees of Europe fly to it. Its criminals, too, perhaps; for misery, like poverty, has many bedfellows."

"You lived there?"

"Yes."

Roma was wiping her fingers with the sponge, and looking sideways out of the window. "And your old friend, Doctor Roselli--he lived in Soho?"

"In Soho Square when I knew him first. The house faced to the north, and had a porch and trees in front of it."

The sponge had dropped to the floor, but Roma did not observe it. She took up a tooth-tool and began to work on the clay again.

"A little more that way, please--thanks! Do you think your friend had a right to renounce his rank and to break up his family in Italy? Think of his father--he would be broken-hearted."

"He was--I've heard my old friend say so. He cursed him at last and forbade him to call himself his son."

"There!"

"But he would never hear a word against the old man. 'He's my father--that's enough,' he would say."

The tooth-tool, like the sponge, dropped out of Roma's fingers.

"How stupid! But his mother...."

"That was sadder still. In the early years of his exile she would pray him to come home. 'You are the best of mothers,' he would answer, 'but I cannot do so.'"

"He never saw her again?"

"Never, but he worshipped her very name and she was a tower of strength to him. 'Mothers!' he used to say, 'if you only knew your power! God be merciful to the wayward one who has no mother!'"

Roma's throat was throbbing. "He ... he was married?"

"Yes. His wife was an Englishwoman, almost as friendless as himself."

"Eyes the other way, at the window--thank you!... Did she know who he was?"

"Nobody knew. He was only a poor Italian doctor to all of us in Soho."

"They ... they were ... happy?"

"As happy as love and friendship could make them. And even when poverty came...."

"He became poor--very poor?"

"Very! It got known that Doctor Roselli was a revolutionary, and then his English patients began to be afraid. The house in Soho Square had to be given up at last, and we went into a side street. Only two rooms now, one to the front, the other to the back, and four of us to live in them, but the misery of that woman's outward circumstances never dimmed the radiance of her sunny soul."

Roma's bosom was heaving and her voice was growing thick. "She ... died?"

David Rossi bent his head and spoke in short, jerky sentences. "Her death came at the bitterest moment of want. It was Christmas time. Very cold and raw. We hadn't too much at home to keep us warm. She caught a cold and it settled on her chest. Pneumonia! Only three or four days altogether. She lay in the back room; it was quieter. The doctor nursed her constantly. How she fought for life! She was thinking of her little daughter. Just six years of age at that time, and playing with her doll on the floor."

His voice had enough to do to control itself.

"When it was all over we went into the front room and made our beds on a blanket spread out on the bare boards. Only three of us now--the child with her father, weeping for the mother lying cold the other side of the wall."

His eyes were still looking out at the window. In Roma's eyes the tears were gathering.

"We were nearly penniless, but our good angel was buried somehow. Oh, the poor are the richest people in the world! I love them! I love them!"

Roma could not look at him any longer.

"It was in the cemetery of Kensal Green. There was a London fog and the grave-diggers worked by torches, which smoked in the thick air. But the doctor stood all the time with his head uncovered. The child was there too, and driving home she looked out of the window and sometimes laughed at the sights in the streets. Only six--and she had never been in a coach before!"

At that moment was heard the boom of the gun that is fired from the Castle of St. Angelo at mid-day, and Roma put down her tools.

"If you don't mind, I'll not try to do any more to-day," she said in a husky voice. "Somehow it isn't coming right this morning. It's like that sometimes. But if you can come at this time to-morrow...."

"With pleasure," said David Rossi, and a moment later he was gone.

She looked at her work and obliterated the expression again.

"Not Thomas," she thought. "John--the beloved disciple! That would fit him exactly."

As she went upstairs to dress for lunch, Felice gave her an envelope bearing the seal of the Prime Minister, and told her the dog was missing.

"He must have followed Mr. Rossi," said Roma, and without ado she read the letter.

"DEAR ROMA,--A thousand thanks for suggesting Charles Minghelli. I
sent for him, saw him, and appointed him immediately. Thanks, too,
for the clue about your father. Highly significant! I mentioned it
to Minghelli, and the dark fire in his eyes shone out instantly.
Adieu, my dear! You are on the right track! I will observe your
request and not come near you.--Affectionately,

"BONELLI."

III

Next morning Roma found herself dressing with extraordinary care.

After coffee she went into the Countess's room as usual. The old lady had made her toilette, and her cat was purring on a cushion by her side.

"Aunt Betsy, is it true that my father was decoyed back to Italy by the police?"

"How do I know that? But if he was, it was no more than he might have expected. He had been breeding sedition at the safe distance of a thousand miles, and it was time he was brought to justice. Besides...."

"Well?"

"There were the estates, and naturally the law could not assign them to anybody else while there was no judgment against your father."

"So my father was enticed back to Italy in the interests of the next of kin."

"Roma! How dare you talk like that? About your best friend, too!"

"I didn't say anything against the Baron, did I?"

"You would be an ungrateful girl if you did. As for your father, I'm tired of talking. Only for his exile you would have had possession of your family estates at this moment, and been a princess in your own right."

"Only for this exile I shouldn't have been here at all, auntie, and somebody else would have been the princess, it seems to me."

The old lady dropped the perfumed handkerchief that was at her nose and said:

"What do you talk about downstairs all day long, miss? Pretty thing if you allow a man like that to fill you with his fictions. He is a nice person to take your opinions from, and you are a nice girl to stand up for a man who sold you into slavery, as I might say! Have you forgotten the baker's shop in London--or was it a pastry cook's, or what?--where they made you a drudge and a scullery-maid, after your father had given you away?"

"Don't speak so loud, Aunt Betsy."

"Then don't worry me by defending such conduct. Ah, how my head aches! Natalina, where are my smelling salts? Natalina!"

"I'm not defending my father, but still...."

"Should think not, indeed! If it hadn't been for the Baron, who went in search of you, and found you after you had run away and been forced to go back to your slave-master, and then sent you to school in Paris, and now permits you to enjoy half the revenue of your father's estates, and forbids us to say a word about his generosity, where would you be? Madonna mia! In the streets of London, perhaps, to which your father had consigned you!"

The Princess Bellini was waiting for Roma when she returned to the drawing-room. The little lady was as friendly as if nothing unusual had occurred.

"Just going for a walk in the Corso, my dear. You'll come? No? Ah, work, work, work!"

The little lady tapped Roma's arm with her pince-nez and laughed.

"Everybody has heard that _he_ is sitting to you, and everybody understands. That reminds me--I've a box at the new opera to-morrow night:--'Samson' at the Costanzi, you know. Only Gi-gi and myself, but if you would like me to take you and to ask your own particular Samson...."

"Honourable Rossi," said Felice at the door, and David Rossi entered the room, with the black poodle bounding before him.

"I must apologise for not sending back the dog," he said. "It followed me home yesterday, but I thought as I was coming to-day...."

"Black has quite deserted me since Mr. Rossi appeared," said Roma, and then she introduced the deputy to the Princess.

The little lady was effusive. "I was just saying, Honourable Rossi, that if you would honour my box at the opera to-morrow night...."

David Rossi glanced at Roma.

"Oh yes, Donna Roma is coming, and if you will...."

"With pleasure, Princess."

"That's charming! After the opera we'll have supper at the Grand Hotel. Good-day!" said the Princess, and then in a low voice at the door, "I leave you to your delightful duties, my dear. You are not looking so well, though. Must be the scirocco. My poor dear husband used to suffer from it shockingly. Adieu!"

Roma was less confused but just as nervous when she settled to her work afresh.

"I've been thinking all night long of the story you told me yesterday," she said. "No, that way, please--eyes as before--thank you! About your old friend, I mean. He was a good man--I don't doubt that--but he made everybody suffer. Not only his father and mother, but his wife also. Has anybody a right to sacrifice his flesh and blood to a work for the world?"

"When a man has taken up a mission for humanity his kindred must reconcile themselves to that," said Rossi.

"Yes, but a child, one who cannot be consulted. Your friend's daughter, for example. She was to lose everything--her father himself at last. How could he love her? I suppose you would say he did love her."

"Love her? He lived for her. She was everything on earth to him, except the one thing to which he had dedicated his life."

A half-smile parted her lovely lips.

"When her mother was gone he was like a miser who had been robbed of all his jewels but one, and the love of father, mother, and wife seemed to gather itself up in the child."

The lovely lips had a doubtful curve.

"How bright she was, too! I can see her still in the dingy London house with her violet eyes and coal-black hair and happy ways--a gleam of the sun from our sunny Italy."

She looked at him. His face was calm and solemn. Did he really know her after all? She felt her cheeks flush and tingle.

"And yet he left her behind to come to Italy on a hopeless errand," she said.

"He did."

"How could he know what would happen?"

"He couldn't, and that troubled him most of all. He lived in constant fear of being taken away from his daughter before her little mind was stamped with the sense of how much he loved her. Delicious selfishness! Yet it was not altogether selfish. The world was uncharitable and cruel, and in the rough chance of life it might even happen that she would be led to believe that because her father gave her away, and left her, he did not love her."

Roma looked up again. His face was still calm and solemn.

"He gave her away, you say?"

"Yes. When the treacherous letter came from Italy he could not resist it. It was like a cry from the buried-alive calling upon him to break down the door of their tomb. But what could he do with the child? To take her with him was impossible. A neighbour came--a fellow-countryman--he kept a baker's shop in the Italian quarter. 'I'm only a poor man,' he said, 'but I've got a little daughter of the same age as yours, and two sticks will burn better than one. Give the child to me and do as your heart bids you!' It was like a light from heaven. He saw his way at last."

Roma listened with head aside.

"One day he took the child and washed her pretty face and combed her glossy hair, telling her she was going to see another little girl and would play with her always. And the child was in high glee and laughed and chattered and knew no difference. It was evening when we set out for the stranger's house, and in the twilight of the little streets happy-hearted mothers were calling to their children to come in to go to bed. The doctor sent me into a shop to buy a cake for the little one, and she ate it as she ran and skipped by her father's side."

Roma was holding her breath.

"The baker's shop was poor but clean, and his own little girl was playing on the hearthrug with her cups and saucers. And before we were aware of it two little tongues were cackling and gobbling together, and the little back-parlour was rippling over with a merry twitter. The doctor stood and looked down at the children, and his eyes shone with a glassy light. 'You are very good, sir,' he said, 'but she is good too, and she'll be a great comfort and joy to you always.' And the man said, 'She'll be as right as a trivet, doctor, and you'll be right too--you'll be made triumvir like Mazzini, when the republic is proclaimed, and then you'll send for the child, and for me too, I daresay.' But I could see that the doctor was not listening. 'Let us slip away now,' I said, and we stole out somehow."

Roma's eyes were moistening, and the little tool was trembling in her hand.

There was silence for some moments, and then from without, muffled by the walls it passed through, there came the sound of voices. The nuns and children of Trinità de' Monti were singing their Benediction--_Ora pro nobis!_

"I don't think I'll do any more to-day," said Roma. "The light is failing me, and my eyes...."

"The day after to-morrow, then," said Rossi, rising.

"But do you really wish to go to the opera to-morrow night?"

He looked steadfastly into her face and answered "Yes."

She understood him perfectly. He had sinned against her and he meant to atone. She could not trust herself to look at him, so she took the damp cloth and turned to cover up the clay. When she turned back he was gone.

After dinner she replied to the Baron's letter of the day before.

"DEAR BARON,--I have misgivings about being on the right track,
and feel sorry you have set Minghelli to work so soon. Do Prime
Ministers appoint people at the mere mention of their names by
wards, second cousins, and lady friends generally? Wouldn't it
have been wise to make inquiries? What was the fault for which
Minghelli was dismissed in London?

"As for D. R., I must have been mistaken about his knowing me. He
doesn't seem to know me at all, and I believe his shot at me by
way of my father was a fluke. At all events, I'm satisfied that it
is going in the wrong direction to set Minghelli on his trail.
_Leave him to me alone._--Yours, ROMA.

"P.S.--Princess Potiphar and Don Saint Joseph are to take me to
the new opera to-morrow night. D. R. is also to be there, so he
will be seen with me in public!

"I have begun work on King David for a bust. He is not so
wonderfully good-looking when you look at him closely."

IV

The little Princess called for Roma the following night, and they drove to the opera in her magnificent English carriage. Already the theatre was full and the orchestra was tuning up. With the movement of people arriving and recognising each other there was an electrical atmosphere which affected everybody. Don Camillo came, oiled and perfumed, and when he had removed the cloaks of the ladies and they took their places in the front of the box, there was a slight tingling all over the house. This pleased the little Princess immensely, and she began to sweep the place with her opera-glass.

"Crowded already!" she said. "And every face looking up at my box! That's what it is to have for your companion the most beautiful and the most envied girl in Rome. What a sensation! Nothing to what it will be, though, when your illustrious friend arrives."

At that moment David Rossi appeared at the back, and the Princess welcomed him effusively.

"So glad! So honoured! Gi-gi, let me introduce you--Honourable Rossi, Don Camillo Luigi Murelli."

Roma looked at him--he had an air of distinction in a dress coat such as comes to one man in a thousand. He looked at Roma--she wore a white gown with violets on one shoulder and two rows of pearls about her beautiful white throat. The Princess looked at both of them, and her little eyes twinkled.

"Never been here before, Mr. Rossi? Then you must allow me to explain everything. Take this chair between Roma and myself. No, you must not sit back. _You_ can't mind observation--so used to it, you know."

Without further ado David Rossi took his place in front of the box, and then a faint commotion passed over the house. There were looks of surprise and whispered comments, and even some trills of laughter.

He bore it without flinching, as if he had come for it and expected it, and was taking it as a penance.

Roma dropped her head and felt ashamed, but the little Princess went on talking. "These boxes on the first tier are occupied by Roman society generally, those on the second tier mainly by the diplomatic corps, and the stalls are filled by all sorts and conditions of people--political people, literary people, even trades-people if they're rich enough or can pretend to be."

"And the upper circles?" asked Rossi.

"Oh," in a tired voice, "professional people, I think--Collegio Romano and University of Rome, you know."

"And the gallery?"

"Students, I suppose." Then eagerly, after bowing to somebody below, "Gi-gi, there's Lu-lu. Don't forget to ask him to supper.... All the beautiful young men of Rome are here to-night, Mr. Rossi, and presently they'll pay a round of calls on the ladies in the boxes."

The voice of the Princess was suddenly drowned by the sharp tap of the conductor, followed by the opening blast of the overture. Then the lights went down and the curtain rose, but still the audience kept up a constant movement in the lower regions of the house, and there was an almost unbroken chatter.

The curtain fell on the first act without anybody knowing what the opera had been about, except that Samson loved a woman named Delilah, and the lords of the Philistines were tempting her to betray him. Students in the gallery, recognisable by their thin beards, shouted across at each other for the joy of shouting, and spoke by gestures to their professors below. People all over the house talked gaily on social subjects, and there was much opening and shutting of the doors of boxes. The beautiful young man called Lu-lu came to pay his respects to the Princess, and there was a good deal of gossip and laughter.

The second act was more dramatic than the first, showing Samson in his character as a warrior, and when the curtain came down again, General Morra, the Minister of War, visited the Princess's box.

"So you're taking lessons in the art of war from the professor who slew an army with the jaw-bone of an ass?" said Don Camillo.

"Wish we could enlist a few thousands of him--jaw-bones as well," said the General. "The gentleman might be worth having at the War Office, if it was only as a _jettatura_." And then in a low voice to the Princess, with a glance at Roma, "Your beautiful young friend doesn't look so well to-night."

The Princess shrugged her shoulders. "Of the pains of love one suffers but does not die," she whispered.

"You surely cannot mean...."

The Princess put the tip of her fan to his lips and laughed.

Roma was conscious of a strange conflict of feelings. The triumph she had promised herself by David Rossi's presence with her in public--the triumph over the envious ones who would have rejoiced in her downfall--brought her no pleasure.

The third act dealt with the allurements of Delilah, and was received with a good deal of laughter.

"Ah, these sweet, round, soft things--they can do anything they like with the giants," said Don Camillo.

The Baron, who had dined with the King, came round at the end of the next act, wearing a sash diagonally across his breast, with crosses, stars, and other decorations. He bowed to David Rossi with ceremonious politeness, greeted Don Camillo familiarly, kissed the hand of the Princess, and offered his arm to Roma to take her into the corridor to cool--she was flushed and overheated.

"I see you are getting on, my child! Excellent idea to bring him here! Everybody is saying you cannot be the person he intended, so his trumpet has brayed to no purpose."

"You received my letters?" she said in a faltering voice.

"Yes, but don't be uneasy. I'm neither the prophet nor the son of a prophet if we are not on the right track. What a fortunate thought about the man Minghelli! An inspiration! You asked what his fault was in London--forgery, my dear!"

"That's serious enough, isn't it?"

"In a Secretary of Legation, yes, but in a police agent...."

He laughed significantly, and she felt her skin creep.

"Has he found out anything?" she asked.

"Not yet, but he is clearly on the track of great things. It is nearly certain that your King David is a person wanted by the law."

Her hand twitched at his arm, but they were turning at the end of the corridor and she pretended to trip over her train.

"Some clues missing still, however, and to find them we are sending Minghelli to London."

"London? Anything connected with my father?"

"Possibly! We shall see. But there's the orchestra and here's your box! You're wonderful, my dear! Already you've undone the mischief he did you, and one half of your task is accomplished. Diplomatists! Pshaw! We'll all have to go to school to a girl. Adieu!"

All through the next act Roma seemed to feel a sting on her arm where the Baron had touched it, and she was conscious of colouring up when the Princess said:

"Everybody is looking this way, my dear! See what it is to be the most talked-of girl in Rome!"

And then she felt David Rossi's hand on the back of her chair, and heard his soft voice saying:

"The light is in your eyes, Donna Roma. Let me change places with you for a while."

After that everything passed in a kind of confusion. She heard somebody say:

"He's putting a good deal of heart into it, poor thing!"

And somebody answered, "Yes, of broken heart apparently."

Then there was a crash and the opera was over, and she was going out in a crowd on David Rossi's arm, and feeling as if she would fall if she dropped it.

The magnificent English carriage drew up under the portico and all four of them got into it.

"Grand Hotel!" cried Don Camillo. Then dropping back to his place he laughed and chanted:

"And the dead he slew at his death were more than he slew in his life ... and he judged Israel twenty years."

V

A marshy air from the Campagna shrouded the city as with a fog, and pierced through the closed windows of the carriage, but there was warmth and glow in the Grand Hotel.

One woman after another came in clothed in diamonds under the fur cloak which hung over her bare arms and shoulders, until the room was a dazzling blaze of jewels.

People caught each other's eyes through lorgnettes and eye-glasses, and there were constant salutations. The men chattered, the women laughed, and there was an affectation of baby-talk at nearly every table. Then supper was served, glasses were held up as signals, and bright eyes began to play about the room, until the atmosphere was tingling with electric currents and heated by human passion.

Roma sat facing the Princess. She was still confused and preoccupied, but when rallied upon her silence she brightened up for a moment and tried to look buoyant and happy. David Rossi, who was on her left, was still quiet and collected, but bore the same air as before, of a man going through a penance.

This was observed by Don Camillo, who sat on the right of the Princess, and led to various little scenes.

"Very good company here, Mr. Rossi. Always sure of seeing some beautiful young women," said Don Camillo.

"And beautiful young men, apparently," said David Rossi.

The beautiful young man called Lu-lu was there, and reaching over to Don Camillo, and speaking in a whisper between the puff of a cigarette and a sip of coffee, he said:

"Why doesn't the Minister buy the man up? Easy enough to buy the press these days."

"He's doing better than that," said Don Camillo. "He's drawing him from opposition by the allurements of...."

"Office?"

"No, the lady," whispered Don Camillo, but Roma heard him.

She was ashamed. The innuendoes which belittled David Rossi were belittling herself as well, and she wanted to get up and fly.

Rossi himself seemed to be unconscious of anything hurtful. Although silent, he was calm and cheerful, and his manner was natural and polite. The wife of one of the royal aides-de-camp sat next to him, and talked constantly of the King.

Roma found herself listening to every word that was said to David Rossi, but she also heard a conversation that was going on at the other end of the table.

"Wants to be another Cola di Rienzi, doesn't he?" said Lu-lu.

"Another Christ," said Don Camillo. "He'll be asking for a crown of thorns by-and-by, and calling on the world to immolate him for the sake of humanity. Look! He's talking to the little Baroness, but he is fifteen thousand miles above the clouds at this moment."

"Where does he come from, I wonder?" said Lu-lu, and then the two hands of Don Camillo played the invisible accordion.

"Madame de Trop says his father was Master of the House to Prince Petrolium--vice-prince, you know, and brought up in the little palace," said the Princess.

"Don't believe a word of it," said Don Camillo, "and I'll wager he never supped at a decent hotel before."

"I'll ask him! Listen now! Some fun," said the Princess. "Honourable Rossi!"

"Yes, Princess," said David Rossi.

The eyes of the little Princess swept the table with a sparkling light.

"Beautiful room, isn't it?"

"Beautiful."

"Never been here before, I suppose?"

David Rossi looked steadfastly into her eyes and answered, "Oh yes, Princess. When I first returned to Italy eight years ago I was a waiter in this house for a month."

The sparkling face of the little Princess broke up like a snowball in the sun, and the two other men dropped their heads.

Roma hardly knew what her own feelings were. Humiliation, shame, confusion, but above all, pride--pride in David Rossi's courage and strength.

The white mist from the Campagna pierced to the bone as they came out by the glass-covered hall, and an old woman with an earthenware scaldino, crouching by the marble pillars in the street, held out a chill, damp hand and cried:

"A penny for God's sake! May I die unconfessed if I've eaten anything since yesterday!... God bless you, my daughter! and the Holy Virgin and all the saints!"

At the door of her house Roma parted from the Princess, and said to Rossi, as the carriage drove away, "Come early to-morrow. I've not yet been able to work properly somehow."

She was restless and feverish, and she would have gone to bed immediately, but crossing the drawing-room she heard the fretful voice of her aunt saying, "Is that you, Roma?" and she had no choice but to go into the Countess's bedroom.

A red lamp burned before the shrine, and the old lady was in an embroidered nightdress, but she was wide awake, and her eyes flashed and her lips trembled.

"Ah, it's you at last! Sit down! I want to speak to you. Natalina!" cried the Countess. "Oh, dear me, the girl has gone to bed. Give me the cognac. There it is--on the dressing-table."

She sipped the brandy, fidgeted with her cambric handkerchief, and said:

"Roma, I'm surprised at you! You hadn't used to be so stupid! How? Don't you see what that woman is doing? What woman? The Princess, of course. Inviting you to share her box at the opera so that you may be seen in public with that man. She hates him like poison, but she would swallow anything to throw you and this Rossi together. Do you expect the Baron to approve of that? His enemy, and you on such terms with the man? Here, take back this cognac. I feel as if I would choke--Natalina...."

"You're quite mistaken, Aunt Betsy," said Roma. "The Baron was at the opera and came into the box himself, and he approved of everything."

"Tut! Don't tell me! Because he has some respect for himself and keeps his own counsel you are simple enough to think he will not be offended."

The old lady's voice was dying down to a choking whisper, but she went on without a pause.

"If you've no thought for yourself, you might have some for me. You are young, and anything may come to you, but I'm old and I'm tied down to this mattress, and what is to happen if the Baron takes offence? The income he allows us from your father's estates is under his own control still. He can cut it off at any moment, and if he does, what is to become of me?"

Roma's bosom was swelling under her heavy breathing, her heart was beating violently and her head was dizzy. All the bitterness of the evening was boiling in her throat, and it burst out at length in a flood.

"So that is all your moral protestations come to, is it?" she said. "Because the Baron is necessary to you and you cannot exist without him, you expect me to buy and sell myself according to your necessities."

"Roma! What are you saying? Aren't you ashamed...."

"Aren't _you_ ashamed? You've been trying to throw me into the arms of the Baron, and you haven't cared what would happen so long as I kept up appearances."

"Oh, dear! I see what it is. You want to be the death of me! You will, too, before you've done. Natalina! Where is...."

"More than that, you've poisoned my mind against my father, and because I couldn't remember him, you've brought me up to think of him as selfish and vain and indifferent to his own daughter. But my father wasn't that kind of man at all."

"Who told you that, miss?"

"Never mind who told me. My father was a saint and a martyr, and a great man, and he loved me with all his heart and soul."

"Oh, my head! My poor head!... A martyr indeed! A socialist, a republican, a rebel, an anarchist, you mean!"

"Never mind what his politics were. He was my father--that is enough--and you had no right to make _me_ think ill of him, whatever the world might do."

Roma was superb at that moment, with her head thrown back, her eyes flaming, and her magnificent figure swelling and heaving under her clinging gown.

"You'll kill me, I tell you. The cognac ... Natalina...." cried the Countess, but Roma was gone.

Before going to bed Roma wrote to the Baron:

"Certain you are wrong. Why waste time sending Charles Minghelli
to London? Why? Why? Why? The forger will find out nothing, and if
he does, it will only be by exercise of his Israelitish art of
making bricks without straw. Stop him at once if you wish to save
public money and spare yourself personal disappointment. Stop him!
Stop him! Stop him!

"P.S.--To show you how far astray your man has gone, D. R.
mentioned to-night that he was once a waiter at the Grand Hotel!"

VI

Next morning David Rossi arrived early.

"Now we must get to work in earnest," said Roma. "I think I see my way at last."

It was not John the beloved disciple, John who lay in the bosom of his Lord. It was Peter, the devoted, stalwart, brave individual, human, erring but glorious Peter. "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I build my church."

"Same position as before. Eyes the other way. Thank you!... Afraid you didn't enjoy yourself last night--no?"

"At the theatre? I was interested. But the human spectacle was perhaps more to me than the artistic one. I am no artist, you see.... How did _you_ become a sculptor?"

"Oh, I studied a little in the studios of Paris, where I went to school, you see."

"But you were born in London?"

"Yes."

"Why did you come to Rome?"

"Rome was the home of my people, you know. And then there was my name--Roma!"

"I knew a Roma long ago."

"Really? Another Roma?"

There was a tremor in her voice.

"It was the little daughter of the friend I've spoken about."

"How interest ... No, at the window, please--that will do."

Roma was choking with a sense of duplicity, but save for a turn of the head David Rossi gave no sign.

"She was only seven when I saw her last."

"That was long ago, you say?"

"Seventeen years ago."

"Then she will be the same age as...."

"The first time I saw her she was only three, and she was in her nightdress ready for bed."

Roma laughed a little, but she knew that every note in her voice was confused and false.

"She said her prayers with a little lisp at that time. 'Our Fader oo art in heben, alud be dy name.'"

He laughed a little now, as he mimicked the baby voice. They laughed together, then they looked at each other, and then with serious eyes they turned away.

"You'll think it strange, but I date my first conscious and definite aspiration to the memory of that hour."

"Really?"

"Ten years afterward, when I was in America, the words of that prayer came back to me in Roma's little lisp. 'Dy kingum tum. Dy will be done on eard as it is in heben.'"

For some time after that Roma worked on without speaking, feeling feverish and restless. But just as the silence was becoming painful, and she could bear it no longer, Felice came to announce lunch.

"You'll stay? I want so much to work on while I'm in the mood," she said.

"With pleasure," he replied.

She ate hardly at all, for she was troubled by many misgivings. Did he know her? He did; he must; every word, every tone seemed to tell her that. Then why did he not speak out plainly? Because, having revealed himself to her, he was waiting for her to reveal herself to him. And why had she not done so? Because she was enmeshed in the nets of the society she lived in; because she was ashamed of the errand that had brought them together; and most of all because she had not dared to lay bare that secret of his life which, like an escaped convict, dragged behind it the broken chain of the prison-house.

_David Leone is dead!_ To uncover, even to their own eyes only, the fact that lay hidden behind those words was like personating the priest and listening at the grating of the confessional!

No matter! She must do it! She must reveal herself as her heart and instinct might direct. She must claim the parentage of the noblest soul that ever died for liberty, and David Rossi must trust his secret to the bond of blood which would make it impossible for her to betray the foster-son of her own father.

Having come to this conclusion, the light seemed to break in her heavy sky, but the clouds were charged with electricity. As they returned to the studio she was excited and a little hysterical, for she thought the time was near. At that moment a regiment of soldiers passed along under the ilex trees to the Pincio, with their band of music playing as they marched.

"Ah, the dear old days!" said David Rossi. "Everything reminds me of them! I remember that when she was six...."

"Roma?"

"Yes--a regiment of troops returned from a glorious campaign, and the doctor took us to see the illuminations and rejoicings. We came to a great piazza almost as large as the piazza of St. Peter's, with fountains and a tall column in the middle of it."

"I know--Trafalgar Square!"

"Dense crowds covered the square, but we found a place on the steps of a church."

"I remember--St. Martin's Church. You see, I know London."

"The soldiers came in by the big railway station close by...."

"Charing Cross, isn't it."

"And they marched to the tune of the 'British Grenadiers' and the thunder of fifty thousand throats. And as their general rode past, a beacon of electric lights in the centre of the square blazed out like an aureole about the statue of a great Englishman who had died long ago for the cause which had then conquered."

"Gordon!" she cried--she was losing herself every moment.

"'Look, darling!' said the doctor to little Roma. And Roma said, 'Papa, is it God?' I was a tall boy then, and stood beside him. 'She'll never forget that, David,' he said."

"And she didn't ... she couldn't ... I mean.... Have you ever told me what became of her?"

She would reveal herself in a moment--only a moment--after all, it was delicious to play with this sweet duplicity.

"Have you?" she said in a tremulous voice.