Giacosa rose at her summons and advanced with his usual deferential alacrity. He shook hands with Rowland in silence. “Mr. Mallet refuses to say a word,” Mrs. Light went on. “Time presses, every moment is precious. Heaven knows what that poor boy may be doing. If at this moment a clever woman should get hold of him she might be as ugly as she pleased! It ‘s horrible to think of it.” The Cavaliere fixed his eyes on Rowland, and his look, which the night before had been singular, was now most extraordinary. There was a nameless force of anguish in it which seemed to grapple with the young man’s reluctance, to plead, to entreat, and at the same time to be glazed over with a reflection of strange things. Suddenly, though most vaguely, Rowland felt the presence of a new element in the drama that was going on before him. He looked from the Cavaliere to Mrs. Light, whose eyes were now quite dry, and were fixed in stony hardness on the floor. “If you could bring yourself,” the Cavaliere said, in a low, soft, caressing voice, “to address a few words of solemn remonstrance to Miss Light, you would, perhaps, do more for us than you know. You would save several persons a great pain. The dear signora, first, and then Christina herself. Christina in particular. Me too, I might take the liberty to add!” There was, to Rowland, something acutely touching in this humble petition. He had always felt a sort of imaginative tenderness for poor little unexplained Giacosa, and these words seemed a supreme contortion of the mysterious obliquity of his life. All of a sudden, as he watched the Cavaliere, something occurred to him; it was something very odd, and it stayed his glance suddenly from again turning to Mrs. Light. His idea embarrassed him, and to carry off his embarrassment, he repeated that it was folly to suppose that his words would have any weight with Christina. The Cavaliere stepped forward and laid two fingers on Rowland’s breast. “Do you wish to know the truth? You are the only man whose words she remembers.” Rowland was going from surprise to surprise. “I will say what I can!” he said. By this time he had ventured to glance at Mrs. Light. She was looking at him askance, as if, upon this, she was suddenly mistrusting his motives. “If you fail,” she said sharply, “we have something else! But please to lose no time.” She had hardly spoken when the sound of a short, sharp growl caused the company to turn. Christina’s fleecy poodle stood in the middle of the vast saloon, with his muzzle lowered, in pompous defiance of the three conspirators against the comfort of his mistress. This young lady’s claims for him seemed justified; he was an animal of amazingly delicate instincts. He had preceded Christina as a sort of van-guard of defense, and she now slowly advanced from a neighboring room.