"Astrid," said Ragna, "do make haste! It will be luncheon time before we get out, and you can perfectly well finish your letter this evening."

Astrid looked up from her writing-board, nibbling her pen-holder reflectively. She was sitting near one window of the room, and by the other stood Ragna, pulling on her gloves impatiently. They had been in Rome a few weeks, and the first fervour of sight-seeing over, had fallen into a go-as-you-please sort of existence. Fru Bjork left the girls largely to their own devices; the long flight of stairs to be climbed after every outing so tired her legs and shortened her breath, that she declined to face them more than once a day, and she had conscientious scruples against eating in a restaurant, when her meals must be paid for, in any case, at the pension. Estelle Hagerup preferred to wander about alone; she would start out valiantly in the morning, her hat tied firmly on her sleek head, her skirt looped up in festoons by a series of flaps and buttons, displaying her sturdy broad-toed boots. The very glasses perched on her prominent nose gave an earnest inquiring expression to her face. Night-fall would see her home again, tired, dusty, radiant and quite unable to give a connected account of her peregrinations. She would blissfully say:

"I am drinking in the atmosphere, I am saturating myself with the essence of Rome!" and the word "Rome" as she said it with an awed expression and bated breath suggested a hoary cavern of antiquity, haunted by the ghosts of buried CÆsars. Her short-sighted eyes would grow round and she would clasp her large bony hands ecstatically. Good-natured Fru Bjork smiled at her enthusiasm and if the girls made fun of her at times, they did it pleasantly.

Astrid was inclined to be lazy; she enjoyed the sun and the warmth, and the picturesque figures on the Spanish Stairs, but museums and picture galleries bored her, and the churches, she declared, gave her the creeps. So it fell out that Ragna who wished to do her sight-seeing after a methodical plan, generally found herself alone. Armed with a guide book she began at the beginning, as it were, visiting first the most ancient ruins and relics, in their order, working on down to modern times. It disconcerted her to find ancient and modern mingled—as they so often were,—and at the Pantheon she resolutely shut her eyes to the monuments of the House of Savoy, until such time as she should have reached their place in history. It will be seen that her method involved no little difficulty and much returning over the same ground. It seemed pure lunacy to Astrid, who objected to being dragged over and over again to the same place to observe some addition or later adaptation which she had been forbidden to inspect on her first visit.

"It would be so easy to see it all at once," she plaintively protested, but Ragna was adamant.

Astrid therefore pleaded her delicate health and the overfatigue caused by such strenuous sight-seeing as an excuse to remain at home, where she composed lengthy epistles to her fiancÉ with whom she was comfortably, if not passionately, in love.

On this particular morning she was evolving a description of her impressions during a drive on the Pincio the afternoon before. She felt lazily content with the world, herself, and things in general and had no wish to bestir herself.

"I wish you weren't so awfully energetic, Ragna," she said.

"Well, I couldn't sit down in Rome and bite my pen all day, as if there were nothing better to do,—you might as well be in Christiania! Come, get on your things!"

"What are you going to see to-day?"

"I'm not going to see anything this morning. I have some shopping to do in the Corso."

Astrid's eyes brightened, then she shook her head.

"I must finish my letter first."

"Oh, nonsense! Edvard can wait a few hours!"

"You always say that—but then you don't know what it is to be engaged," she glanced at the pretty ring decorating her hand. "You see, Edvard gets so huffy if I'm not regular in my correspondence, and I haven't written to him for three days."

Ragna shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, very well! I suppose I must wait. Do be as quick as you can, Astrid, the morning is almost all gone."

She stood drumming on the window-sill, looking down into the busy Piazza Montecitorio far below. A row of "botti" stretched across the sunny side, the drivers carrying on an animated conversation among themselves and with one or two flower sellers. The old woman who kept the news-stand at the corner, alternately sorted her newspapers and warmed her fingers over her scaldino, for the air was crisp, it being early in January. Through the Piazza streamed a motley procession of tourists, red-covered Baedeker in hand,—priests in cassock and beaver hat, popolini and girls, and some Trasteverine with coloured stays over white camicie, and strings of coral about their necks. Ragna watched them all with fascinated eyes. The variegated Roman crowds were a constant source of interest and delight to her; she could not but feel the charm of their casual, seemingly untrammelled existence. The Romans, she thought, had not a worry in the world, their happy care-free faces drew her; even in the beggar's professional whine she observed a lack of real distress—all seemed to float lightly on the surface of Life, passing the under-currents, the sunken rocks, skimming carelessly over the shallows. She remembered a boy she had seen the day before, breaking his fast on a hunch of bread and a glass of sour wine; his bare feet protruded from tattered trouser-legs, his elbows showed through rents in the sleeves of his ragged jacket. He was a flower-vendor and she had stopped to choose a bunch of flowers from his basket. When she paid him, he thanked her with a brilliant smile, displaying his white teeth, and in halting Italian she asked him what made him so happy.

"Happy, Signorina? Of course I am happy,—the sun is warm and I have my bread and wine—!"

It was little reason enough, in all conscience, thought Ragna; she wondered what made these people satisfied with the passing sensation, oblivious of ulterior good or ill, and she envied them.

Her eyes wandered to the clock on the Parliament buildings opposite,—it was almost eleven. She turned half angrily to Astrid who was gazing into space, still chewing her pen-holder.

"Haven't you finished yet?"

Astrid started and a look of contrition came over her face.

"Oh! I'm awfully sorry Ragna, but I just can't write quickly to-day. Don't wait for me, there's a dear! I'll go out with you this afternoon. I'll be ready by then, I truly will!"

Ragna pushed out her underlip, but made no answer; she merely shut the door quite firmly behind her as she left the room. She descended the long stairs and crossed the Piazza, shaking her head at the eager vetturini one or two of whom rattled after her cracking their whips, in hopes of a fare. She walked along resolutely, seemingly unconscious of the attention she attracted. She wore part of her thick golden hair down her back where it hung well below the waist, and the rest wreathed in massive plaits about her head. Men of the people often spoke to her as they passed, praising her "cappelli d'oro," calling her "bella biondina" and "simpaticona," but she had become accustomed to it, and took no notice of them. In her heart of hearts she was flattered by the simple homage which had nothing of either insolence or rudeness.

She walked on enjoying the crisp air, for though the sun was warm, snow lay on the Albon Hills and the breath of it gave a keen edge to the breeze. She was in the Corso, standing, looking in a shop window, when she saw, reflected in the plate glass, a man who had passed her suddenly turn on his heel and come to her side; at the same moment a voice, strangely familiar, asked her in French:

"Have I not the pleasure of addressing Mdlle. Andersen?"

She turned and met the eyes of Prince Mirko. The colour left her cheeks and she felt a suffocating sensation at her heart. She could not answer him, her voice seemed strangled in her throat. The Prince continued:

"Or is it Madame Something?"

The red came back to her cheeks with a rush, and recovering the use of her tongue, she murmured,

"Your Highness! Here?"

"Yes," he answered, "I'm not a ghost, but I'm not a 'Highness' either,—I left that at home; I am plain 'Count Romanoff,' for the present. But you are still Mademoiselle Andersen?"

She nodded affirmatively.

"What shall I say? That I am glad? But that would be selfish—poor unfortunate man that you have not married!" He laughed easily.

Ragna smiled; his playful assumption of comradeship put her at her ease; the ice was broken, it was a tacit resumption of their friendly relation before the far away evening of the kiss. Perhaps he had forgotten that episode, his cheerful friendliness of manner gave no intimation of any such recollection, and Ragna felt gladly assured that such was the case. The thought completed her composure, and she replied,

"But neither have you married, Your—"

"No! No!" he interrupted, "don't call me that! In the first place I am here incognito, and then I have always liked to think that to at least one charming person in the world, I am just myself, just 'Mirko.' We were comrades on the ship—let us begin again where we left off—shall we?"

Her eyes interrogated him intently, but she still saw no sign of an embarrassing memory, so she allowed herself to smile. In point of fact, he had no distinct recollection of those days on the Norje, nor of their ending; many new faces had come between, in the intervening years. He merely remembered Ragna as a charming child who had helped while away the hours on the little steamer, and the finding of her here in Rome was a windfall, when he most needed distraction. His eye followed approvingly the slightly more developed curves of her figure and the shining ripples of her hair. He had been to Monte Carlo and luck had been against him, even to his father's hearing of the escapade, and it had been intimated to him that a month or so of rustication incognito before coming home, in order to give the paternal wrath time to cool, would materially aid in the restoration of peace. Ragna's emotion at his sudden appearance laid a flattering unction to his soul; her northern, and to him, unusual beauty attracted him newly, and he said to himself,

"Unlucky at cards, lucky in love—chi lo sa?"

"Let us move on," he said to Ragna, "we are attracting attention as well as stopping the way. You will let me walk with you, and you shall tell me how it is you happen to be here."

Ragna found herself walking beside him as in a dream. In reply to his questions she told him of her journey to Italy with Fru Bjork and Astrid; she described FrÖken Hagerup and her peculiarities, to his great amusement. Something in him seemed to draw out the wit and humour in her—or perhaps it was the excitement of the unexpected meeting,—in any case she talked to him as she had never talked to anyone in her life.

So they walked on until they reached the Piazza del Popolo, and Ragna looking at her watch found, to her horror and surprise, that it was half-past twelve.

"And I never heard the midday gun!" she exclaimed.

The large square was deserted; a beggar or two sat eating in the sun by the fountains. Even the busy Corso seemed empty.

"I must hurry home at once," said Ragna, turning swiftly.

"It is a long walk,—why go back? Why not celebrate our reunion by lunching with me?" suggested Mirko.

"Oh, no!" she shook her head, "that would never do! They would all be anxious about me if I did not turn up—and think what Fru Bjork would say when she heard I had been lunching with a young man!"

"But why should she hear of it? You can say you have been sight-seeing, too far away for you to get back in time. Make any excuse you like, but do be good! Come!" His voice was like that of a spoilt child begging for a new toy.

"Astrid knows I'm not sight-seeing to-day. I told her before I went out."

He observed that she appeared not to resent the idea of a mild deception—or was it that she wished to ignore the suggestion?

"You are afraid of me!" he said teasingly. "Believe me, I am not an ogre!"

She rose at once to the bait.

"Afraid? Why should I be afraid? I say 'no' because it is impossible." Her tone was final.

Mirko laughed.

"'When a woman won't, she won't, and there's an end on't!'" he quoted. "At least one hears so. What is it, obstinacy or propriety as personified by your compatriots?"

"In this case it would amount to the same."

"Not in the least; obstinacy is hopeless, but Mrs. Grundy may be got around."

"How so?" asked Ragna.

"In the first place, there is no reason at all why Mrs. Grundy should become aware of my existence—in the second place, there are ways of placating that worthy dame. I know something of that," he smiled to himself reminiscently. "However, that is beside the point,—prevention is better than cure, besides being simpler. No, little friend," he emphasized the word, "let our friendship be free from outside interference—let us keep it to our two selves."

Ragna thought that too delicate to hint of their difference in station, he was taking this way of urging on her the private character of their acquaintanceship,—of telling her that he did not care to be thrust into a bourgeois milieu. That he should desire to prolong the chance renewal of their comradeship beyond the hour, flattered her, and she was too innocent-minded and too accustomed to the free intercourse between northern men and maidens to see any real harm in acceding to his suggestion. "Concealment," she told herself, "did not necessarily imply deceit, so why expose herself to the curiosity of Astrid and Estelle Hagerup, why hedge about this unexpected adventure with the formality that must of necessity follow on disclosure, when she might so easily keep it to herself?" Quite unconsciously she was actuated by a slight jealousy of Astrid; in spite of herself, the assured triumph of Astrid's career as symbolised in her engagement, the consequence it gave her in the eyes of others, rankled in Ragna's spirit. The thought that a prince sought her friendship raised her in her own eyes and gave her a sort of moral vertigo. If Mirko had shown the slightest sign of remembering that he had once kissed her, her pride would have been up in arms to defend her, but he seemed to remember her only as a merry comrade and it was as such that he sought her society. He saw her hesitation and pressed his point.

"Let me show you the charm of Italy, you will never learn it alone. Italy to be understood must be seen through two pairs of eyes—and you can always dismiss me the minute you are tired of me. I should so like to show you Rome,—the Rome I love—There is no reason why anyone should know, you have told me yourself that you go about alone. You don't know how useful I can make myself if I try!"

Ragna laughed.

"I confess you convey more the impression of a 'lily of the field,' than of an exponent of the beauty of utility!"

"Oh, but you've never seen me really hard at work! Nor has anyone else, for the matter of that," he added to himself.

"Then what is it, exactly, you expect to do for me?"

"I shall be your guide, philosopher and friend. 'Sous les remparts de Rome et sous ses vastes plaines!'" he declaimed, drawing himself up.

Ragna's eyes sparkled mischievously,

"I believe I should make a better cicerone than you, if it comes to that!"

"Oh, that is quite beside the point! It is unspeakably barbarian to insist on guide-book accuracy. I shall supply what is much more important: the atmosphere."

"That is what FrÖken Hagerup says she is absorbing."

"She will never know anything about it. Haven't I told you it takes two to see it?"

"How so? One to pour it out and one to drink it in?"

"I didn't remember you so flippant—have you lost all respect for your elders?"

"The child is ready to learn," said Ragna, assuming an expression of becoming meekness. Indeed she hardly recognised her sedate self in this new and agreeable sensation of buoyancy.

"Now," said Prince Mirko, changing his tone, "where shall I meet you again? This afternoon—"

"Is out of the question; I must go out with Fru Bjork and Astrid."

"Then to-morrow morning meet me at the entrance to the Palatino."

"But I haven't said that I would come."

"Oh, yes, you will."

"You take too much for granted."

"I don't think so."

"Then I shan't come," said Ragna, nettled by his air of complacent certainty.

"I shall be there, and we shall see what we shall see," was his calm rejoinder.

They had reached the Piazza Colonna, and Mirko paused, hat in hand.

"I shall come no further—until to-morrow, then!" He turned and left her without waiting for a reply. Ragna watched his lithe figure as he strode easily across the open space. She felt dissatisfied with herself and angry with him for this somewhat cavalier leave-taking, and his confident assumption that she would do as he said.

"What does he take me for?" she asked herself as she sped with rapid steps towards her belated luncheon. "I shall not go to meet him, no I shall not."

She entered the dining-room of the pension, flushed and breathless from the stairs, and found it nearly empty, most of the guests having already finished. Fru Bjork, who liked to take things easily, was still busy with a slice of cold meat, and Astrid picked daintily at an orange with slender fingers.

"Wherever have you been, so long, Ragna?" she asked.

"Did you get the photographs in the Corso?"

"Yes,—or at least no," answered Ragna in some confusion. "It was such a lovely morning I went for a walk instead. I thought I would leave the photographs till you could come with me to choose them." Lying did not come easily to her, and her awkwardness would have betrayed her at once to a keen observer, but Fru Bjork was too unobservant to notice it and Astrid felt confused herself, owing to her failure to be ready to go out as she had promised.

Ragna sat down in her place, removing her gloves as she did so. She poured herself a glass of water, but her hand shook and the water streamed over the table cloth. Fru Bjork, seeing it, said kindly,

"My dear, you should not run up the stairs so fast,—it is bad for the heart. You are too young to think about such things, but when you are my age you will know."

Ragna blushed, thinking of the real reason of her excitement, and the good lady continued anxiously:

"And how flushed your face is, my dear! Oh really, really, you must be more careful!"

She was interrupted by Ragna's other neighbour, an old Swedish lady, whose long nose seemed to rest on her chin and that again on her voluminous bosom tightly sheathed in striped silk, and adorned by a cameo brooch and a frill of lace that had seen fresher days. She laid her mittened hand on Ragna's arm, and said:

"My sweet one, will you choose an orange, the very nicest one, for me? My poor eyes are so bad that I am afraid to trust them." She had drawn the fruit dish over to her and appeared to be trying the efficacy of her nose in selecting fruit.

Ragna picked out an orange at random and laid it on the lady's plate,—the interruption was not unwelcome to her.

"Ah, that is very nice indeed, my dear. Thank you so much! And are you quite sure it is the very best? Well then I know you will like to peel it for me!"

Astrid leant across the table, saying,

"I'll peel it for you while Ragna eats her luncheon."

"Thank you, my dear," said the old lady, a little stiffly.

"You are very kind, but I think the other young lady would have done it more carefully. Young folk are so apt to be inconsiderate, nowadays!" She sighed heavily. Presently she addressed herself to Fru Bjork.

"Don't you think that young people are apt to be inconsiderate nowadays?" she inquired raising her voice. Astrid winked at Ragna; the old lady was their pet antipathy; Astrid had christened her the "Old Woman of the Sea." She always came to the table first and left it last, and managed to keep her neighbours busily employed most of the time.

Fru Bjork answered slowly, a little streamer of salad waving at the corner of her mouth.

"I don't agree with you; I have not found them inconsiderate."

"Then you have been more fortunate than I. I must say, however, that the young men are worse than the young women. Only the other day I asked a young man to give me the piece of chicken in a fricassee, and he gave me the neck."

Astrid stifled a wild giggle in her serviette. The old lady turned to her.

"Are you choking? Get someone to thump your back! But there has been much worse—" she again trained her eye on Fru Bjork,—"just think, last night I never closed an eye, for two thoughtless young men who had the room next to mine, were packing up to go, and they dragged their heavy boxes about and made such a noise that I couldn't sleep at all! It was most inconsiderate of them towards one so much older and so far from strong!"

Astrid's choking became violent. Her room was next to that of the young men, and they had made such a noise that at last she had knocked on the partition asking them to be quiet. They had answered, begging her pardon, explaining that they had been trying to wake the old lady whose sonorous snoring made it impossible to sleep. And in fact, the snoring had been a running accompaniment to the various thumps and bangs, and had continued on, triumphant and undiminished.

"You had better go to your room, Astrid," said her mother. She had heard the story, and in her kindness of heart was afraid of hurting the old lady's feelings.

Ragna rose also, glad of an excuse to go.

"Oh," gasped Astrid, as they left the room, "that old woman will kill me yet. 'So inconsiderate of them!'" she mocked.

"Hush," said Ragna, laughing, "she will hear you!"

"I don't care if she does!" said Astrid, "horrid old mole! She told me I looked consumptive, and that my colour was a hectic flush. If she can see that much she ought to be able to help herself at table!"

Ragna went to her room and sat down on her bed. She felt all in a whirl. The Prince in Rome! And he wished her to be his friend! She was uneasily conscious that she should have spoken of the meeting to Fru Bjork—but the Prince did not wish it. "I suppose on account of his being incognito," she told herself—but reason told her that his official presence would have rendered any intercourse impossible.

"It's like a fairy-tale come true, to have seen him again," she thought, "but I will not meet him to-morrow. Of course there would be no harm if I did. I am old enough to take care of myself,—but I shall not, it would be better not."

She was still going over in her mind the conversation of the morning, when Astrid and Fru Bjork entered, ready for the drive. Ragna started guiltily and Astrid pointed a derisive finger:

"Behold the punctual Ragna! Who's late this time, Miss?"

"I'll be ready in a second," said Ragna flying about the room, while Fru Bjork subsided to a chair, settling her bonnet strings under her double chin.

"There, there!" she said in her comfortable way, "don't hurry so, there's no harm done!"

"Now I'm ready!" cried Ragna.

"Why, my child," exclaimed Fru Bjork, "you have one grey glove and one tan one, and you have put your green coat over your blue frock!"

Astrid giggled, "The air of Rome must have gone to your head!"

Ragna, much confused, rectified her mistakes, and the party set out. They drove to the Doria Pamphilj gardens and afterwards to the Janiculum. Fru Bjork stopped the carriage and they got out and walked. Ragna loved the view from that point better than any other she had seen; the huge mass of St. Peter's, towering like a Titan above the city dwarfing all else by the symmetrical immensity of the dome, fascinated and held her. It dominated humanity, she thought even as it dominated Rome,—the Mother Church, Mistress of the World, rising triumphant on the ruins of the past.

She would willingly have stood there for hours, but the early winter dusk was falling; Astrid shivered and Fru Bjork said "Home."

The return drive through the Trastevere was a delight to Ragna, though Astrid turned up her delicate nose at the variety of smells, and Fru Bjork commented at length on the unhealthfulness of defective drainage. To Ragna it seemed a fairy world, and the hour after sunset, "blind man's holiday" brought out all the wonder and mystery of it, throwing a kindly veil over dirt and sordid details. Lights twinkled in the winding streets, and as they passed Hilda's Tower they saw the glow of the lamp in the shrine. And beneath it all, there ran as an undercurrent in Ragna's mind, the Prince in Rome!