‘It is senseless--so unreasonable,’ she said to herself. ‘It has to be; I suppose he has chosen that it shall be so; and he ought to accept the situation that he has created for himself. Anyone can see--at least, I can--that he is a gentleman, and that this is a most unsuitable occupation for him, but wouldn’t he be still more of a gentleman if he took it quietly--dignified the office he has to fill instead of letting its unpleasantnesses spoil his temper and make him look ridiculous? An Englishman and English gentleman would do that. Of course he ought to do it.’ But before she had arrived at her destination her thoughts had taken another turn. She was no stranger in this land; she knew perfectly well the passionate eagerness and excitability of these children of the South; it was one of the traits which had endeared them to her. And she knew that for all his undignified, unguarded, outspoken rebellion against his position, Signor Oriole was none the less a gentleman, and one of high degree. She knew, too, down in her secret heart, that his uncontrollable vexation when she found him as to-day she had found him, engaged in sordid, menial offices, arose from the fact that in his eyes she was something above and beyond the herd of guests who filled the _pensione_, and as to whose coming and going, seeing or not seeing, commenting or not, upon his position, he was haughtily and superbly indifferent. She did not feel sure whether she was most pleased or most annoyed at this fact; she knew it was a fact, and while she was trying to decide what was her opinion upon it, her carriage stopped at the door of Mrs. Charrington’s apartment. She dismissed it and went upstairs. In two minutes she found herself in one of her friend’s lovely drawing-rooms, which were filled with a dainty, perfumed, well-dressed crowd of different nationalities. There were pretty girls, elegant women, and a sprinkling of men of the most correct and irreproachable manner and appearance. There were also a moderately well-developed ‘lion’ or two, male and female, roaring just now as gently as any sucking-dove. The trumpet tones of the American contingent were not wanting to complete this specimen of the Englishwoman abroad and at home. Most of the company were talking, laughing, and assiduously handing to each other and consuming tea, cake, and liqueurs, discussing the last star at the theatre or opera, the last scandal or gossip about the English or American colony at Rome, the last novel; in a corner were two or three who combined with fashion a passion for archæology, the last discovery, the last fragment of a statue which had been unearthed in any of the excavations, the possibility of more such discoveries on the Palatine--if only one could get under the foundations of Villa Mills, so jealously guarded by its nuns, what might not be found there? And so forth. The winter daylight was almost over, the curtains had been drawn, the lamps lighted.