"We have so little time left to us--only a few days, then our ways part,--let us be lovers for that little time, as if we were betrothed, as if we were to marry like ordinary people. Will you, dear? It can do no harm--just a game of 'pretend' as the children say, and we shall have those days to look back on all our lives!"

He sank to one knee, holding her clasped hands in his own, the folds of his long cloak sweeping the ground. That, and the felt hat gave him the appearance of a cavalier of romance. It was splendidly theatrical--but it harmonized with the setting and the hour. His eyes, soft and burning, held hers.

Why not? thought Ragna, a little romance,--a little happiness, a gorgeous illusion, and the light would go out. Why not make the most of the golden hours--there would be enough grey ones in the future to compensate amply for the delicious fraud. Instinct warned her of hidden danger--but had he not said:

"I would rather die than harm you!"

The pressure of his hand was insistent.

"Very well," she said faintly, "I will."

He sprang to his feet and clasped her in his arms, covering her face with kisses.

"Oh!" she cried struggling, "you must not! It is not right!"

"Are you not my fiancee, my little love?" he asked in a pained voice.

"What hurt can my kisses do you? Oh, Ragna!"

He kissed her again, and this time she did not resist.

When he released her she was breathless and her head swam; she could feel her heart leaping in her bosom and she pressed her hands upon it to still its wild beating. Her face was white as marble and her eyes shone strangely as though illuminated by fires within. In that moment, Mirko really loved her; her confidence appealed to all that was best in him, so realizing that he would not trust himself further he made the move to go.

"It is late _Anima mia_, I must take you home now."

He encircled her waist with his arm under cover of her cloak and they walked slowly back through the dark streets to the Piazza Montecitorio, talking as they went. Or rather it was Mirko who talked and Ragna listened, held in thrall by the musical voice of her lover. It did not occur to her that to make love with such _maestria_ presupposes a large and varied experience.

He left her with a kiss under the gloomy _portone_, and she sped up the stairs, wondering how she should explain her absence in case of discovery. There was no need, however, for Rosa promptly answered her timid knocking, and at a sign from her followed her to her room.

"Here," said Ragna, taking a little brooch from its case and tendering it to the maid, "take this, Rosa,--it is the little present I spoke of."

"_Ma Signorina, che le pare?_" exclaimed Rosa with great deprecation, "it is much too fine for me,--I will take nothing for so small a service. It is a night made by the good G.o.d for lovers, do I not understand that? I also have an _innamorato, Signorina_!"

Ragna, who two hours earlier would have felt unspeakably humiliated by such a speech, now was conscious of a fellow feeling for the girl--such is the freemasonry of love. She smiled and tucking the trinket into Rosa's hand, said:

"Then you will wear this to remember me by, and also to look well in the eyes of your _fidanzato_."

"_Grazie Signorina_, a thousand thanks! And may your _innamorato_ be as faithful as you are beautiful."

"Faithful," repeated Ragna to herself when she had closed the door behind the retreating form of the maid. "What is faithlessness,--memory?

For us there can be no other."

It pleased her to think of her romance as set apart from the common lot.

"It is an oasis in the desert," she thought,--"it will be as he says, something to look back on all our lives."

For a long time she lay awake, gazing into the dark, her pulses throbbing as she thought of his kisses.

CHAPTER IV

The end of Carnival was approaching and many shops displayed dominoes, masks and various disguises and travesties in their windows. The merry madness was in the air and all Rome was keyed up to a pitch of wild gaiety, so soon to relapse into devotional gloom.

Fru Bjork had taken tickets to the _veglione_ in the Costanzi Theatre, and Astrid was wild with antic.i.p.ation. She raged at the indifference displayed by Ragna, who was so absorbed in her fool's Paradise that the _veglione_ might as well not have existed. Her detachment was the more noticeable as even Estelle Hagerup had caught the contagion of excitement and was feverishly weighing the rival advantages of a pea-green domino and a purple one. Astrid had chosen pale blue, but Ragna when pressed decided on black.

She had promised to spend the day of the _veglione_ with Prince Mirko.

They were to drive out into the country, far from the noisy merry-making, and though he had not said so, she felt that it was to be their last day together--the time for separation was approaching, the end of the idyll at hand.

So on the morning of that fateful _mardi gras_ she met him, as arranged, by the Pantheon. He was waiting with a _botte_, drawn by two strong little Maremmano horses with pheasant feathers stuck in their head-stalls and tinkling bells on the harness. The driver, a bronzed aquiline featured Roman, beamed on her as she approached, having often driven them on shorter excursions.

Mirko helped her in and took his place beside her, laying on her lap a huge bunch of fragrant white narcissus and violets. She buried her face in the flowers, breathing the perfume voluptuously.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Oh, quite out, over the Campagna, away from everything and everybody."

He squeezed her hand and she smiled happily.

It was warm for the season, almost sultry, as the Scirocco was blowing.

The sun was comfortably hot, but heavy clouds banking the horizon promised rain before night-fall.

They drove out the Via Appia past the tomb of Cecilia Metella; the green gra.s.s springing fresh between the mortuary tablets bordering the way, and from the walls showed the rapid advance of spring, and as they left the city farther behind, the whole Campagna in new radiance of colour appeared to them as a bride arrayed for her wedding day. The pale pink of the almond blossom in delicate tracery against the deep blue of the sky, the rich dark ilexes with light green tender shoots, the silvery grey of the olives, all looked more like a fairy picture than anything that could possibly be real. This awakening of Nature, this decking out of all the Earth in bridal array, could not but have its effect on the lovers. All creation was breaking into bud and blossom, the spirit of love permeated the very air with the mysterious intoxication of the new running sap in the trees, the awakening to life of the flowers, the song of the birds. It was the mating season.

Mirko and Ragna sat in silence, his right hand closed on her left; she felt strong vibrations pa.s.sing from his hand to hers, she was burning with a vague mysterious excitement too deep for expression.

Mirko's eyes were fixed on her face; he watched her colour come and go, noted the soft shadow of her lashes on her cheek; the impulse of spring flamed in his blood. The tantalising nearness of the girl was too much for his fiery southern temperament, he was rapidly losing his head.

They drove far out over the Campagna, until the city behind them was swallowed up in the undulations of the great gra.s.sy plain. Groups of people bound citywards pa.s.sed them, many of them enlivening the way with s.n.a.t.c.hes of song. A soft damp breeze laden with the composite spring fragrance blew up from the sea. Presently a turn of the road brought them to an old acqueduct; many of the arches lay in ruins, but here and there groups of them still intact, stood upright in the sunshine. Ragna looking at them suddenly remembered her dream on board the _Norje_, and Ingeborg's prediction. Were these the actual stone arches of her dream?

She glanced at Mirko; his eyes were devouring her, they had a wolfish expression; a shiver of fear pa.s.sed over her and she drew her hand from his in a quick gesture of alarm.

"Oh, don't look at me like that! You frighten me. Your eyes look like the eyes of a wild beast, as if you wanted to tear me limb from limb."

Mirko flushed and his expression changed.

"Silly!" he said, but his voice was hoa.r.s.e and sounded strange in her ears. "Silly! May I not look at you? Do you know that you are very beautiful to-day? I must fill my eyes with your dear image, so that I may have you with me always,--even when you are far away."

Ragna partially rea.s.sured, glanced at him shyly through her lashes.

"You really did frighten me, you looked so fierce, so--so hungry!"

He laughed. "I am hungry--hungry for you. But that is nothing new!"

They relapsed into silence again, but there was a strange constraint upon them. The sun's rays were very hot with that sickly heat felt just before a shower. The scent of the narcissus rose insistent and too sweet. Ragna felt uneasy; although Mirko was outwardly the same as he had always been, she divined a change in him, a mysterious subtle change that set him over against her as an enemy from whom she must defend herself. She could not explain to herself this newborn antagonism, she only felt it dimly,--and at the same time there arose riotous within her the call of the springtide, urging her towards him.

The vetturino drew up jingling before the door of an _osteria_,--that of the "_Sora Nanna_," the sign proclaimed. Some deal tables and benches stood under the budding pergola, and at them a few _contadini_ on their way to the festa were indulging in modest libations of "_vino dei Castelli_"--advertised at thirty, forty and fifty _centesimi_ the measure, on placards hanging at the entrance.