"You are very kind," he said, rising. "I appreciate it, I assure you. It has made me stay an unconscionable time. I hope you will find Rome all you expected, and I am sure you will; all people of imagination like Rome. As to the galleries, yes, certainly; a--ah--little later. You must not forget the various small precautions necessary here as regards the fever, you know." "Rome will not be at all what I expected if _you_ desert me," answered Miss Macks, paying no attention to his other phrases. She had risen, also, and was now confronting him at a distance of less than two feet; as she was tall, her eyes were not much below the level of his own. "How can a man desert when he has never enlisted?" thought Noel, humorously. But he kept his thought to himself, and merely replied, as he took his hat: "Probably you will desert me; you will find out how useless I am. You must not be too hard upon us, Miss Macks; we Americans lose much of our native energy if we stay long over here." "Hard?" she answered--"hard? Why, Mr. Noel, I am absolutely at your feet!" He looked at her, slightly startled, although his face showed nothing of it; was she, after all, going to--But no; her sentence had been as impersonal as those which had preceded it. "All I said about having contrary opinions, and all that, amounts to nothing," she went on, thereby relieving him from the necessity of making reply. "I desire but one thing, and that is to have you guide me. And I don't believe you are really going to refuse. You haven't an unkind face, although you _have_ got such a cold way! Why, think of it: here I have come all this long distance, bringing mother, too, just to study, and to see you. I shall study hard; I have a good deal of perseverance. It took a good deal to get here in the first place, for we are poor. But I don't mind that at all; the only thing I should mind, the only thing that would take my courage away, would be to have you desert me. In all the troubles that I thought might happen, I assure you, I never once thought of _that_, Mr. Noel. I thought, of course, you would be interested. Why, in your books you are all interest. Are you different from your books?" "I fear, Miss Macks, that writers are seldom good illustrations of their own doctrines," replied Noel. "That would make them hypocrites. I don't believe you are a hypocrite. I expect you have a habit of running yourself down. Many gentlemen do that, and then they think they will be cried up. I don't believe you are going to be unkind; you _will_ look at the pictures I have brought with me, won't you?" "Mr. Jackson's opinion is worth a hundred of mine, Miss Macks; my knowledge is not technical. But, of course, if you wish it, I shall take pleasure in obeying." He added several conventional remarks as filling-up, and then, leaving his compliments for "your mother"--he could not recall the name she had given--he went towards the little curtained door. She had brightened over his promise.