That would explain the girl's fits of despondency, and her almost feverish application to her work. The more he observed her, the greater grew his curiosity. It must have been a love affair he decided, first because an Italian can imagine no other cause for the inexplicable in a woman's character, and then because she objected so unmistakably to their conversation ever taking a sentimental turn. She was curiously reticent too, he thought, as to her impressions of Rome, indeed it was impossible to get her to talk at any length about Rome at all. Now, Egidio was young and a Latin, and in spite of the self-control of which he boasted, it was clearly impossible that he should continue to be for so long and almost constantly in the company of a pretty girl, whose dazzlingly white skin and golden hair were to his Italian eyes as the fair fruit of some Garden of the Hesperides, without feeling the effects of it. His prudence forbade him, however, to make any advances of a compromising nature until he had assured himself of the material advantages to be obtained. To this end he availed himself of the opportunity offered on those occasions when Ragna was unable to come to the studio, by leading Astrid to talk of her friend. Astrid, nothing loath, chattered on in a light-hearted fashion, talking of their days together at the Paris Convent, of the life in Christiania, of Ragna's incomprehensible dislike of society in general and of men in particular, of Fru Boyesen,--and this interested Valentini most of all. "Madame la tante must be rich to do all that she does for her niece," he observed. "Oh, yes," answered Astrid carelessly. "They say she is the richest woman in Christiania, and she has always said she will leave her fortune to Ragna, as she has no children of her own." Egidio flushed with pleasure, and to hide the gleam in his eyes stooped to pick up a brush that had fallen on the floor. "Then Mademoiselle Ragna is quite an heiress?" "Yes, Ragna will be very well off, some day, but she is such a queer girl,--I don't think she ever thinks of it at all." "She is engaged to be married?" "Oh, no!" "Yet, she can have no lack of suitors?" "She had half Christiania at her heels, but there,--I tell you she is not like other girls, I doubt if she will ever marry. Ragna is queer, sometimes you know, in Rome now,--" she stopped suddenly. "Well, what of Rome?" "Oh, nothing, I don't know!" "But there must be something, since you say it in that tone of voice. I am curious, who was there in Rome?" His eyes interrogated her stealthily over his lowered palette. It came to Astrid with a shock that perhaps she had not been altogether discreet--the man's too evident curiosity put her on her guard. She assumed an air of kittenish dignity.