recognize you in that veil and that cloak; believe me, although I
am not of your country, I am at least a gentleman, and would not
have persuaded you to come if there had been any danger of
complications for you."

Stella clasped her hands convulsively--and he drew a little nearer
her.

"Do put all agitating ideas out of your mind," he said, his blue
eyes, with their benign expression, seeking hers and compelling
them at last to look at him. "Do you understand that it is foolish
to spoil what we have by useless tremors. You are here with me--
for the next hour--shall we not try to be happy?"

"Yes," murmured Miss Rawson, and allowed herself to be magnetized
into calmness.

"When we have passed the Piazza del Popolo and the entrance to the
Pincio, I will have the car opened; then we can see all the
charming young green, and I will tell you of what these gardens
were long ago, and you shall see them with new eyes."

Stella, by some sort of magic, seemed to have recovered her self-
possession as his eyes looked into hers, and she chatted to him
naturally, and the next half hour passed like some fairy tale. His
deep, quiet voice took her into realms of fancy that her
imagination had never even dreamed about. His cultivation was
immense, and the Rome of the Caesars appeared to be as familiar to
him as that of 1911.