"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 ca.s.sock 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, pa.s.sing 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 ma.s.sive plaits about her head. Men of the people often spoke to her as they pa.s.sed, 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 gla.s.s, a man who had pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumption 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 a.s.sured 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 embarra.s.sing 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 Froken Hagerup and her peculiarities, to his great amus.e.m.e.nt. 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.