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Meantime, with the light breeze in her ears, and the beat of her horse's hoofs echoing among the aqueducts and tombs, Roma galloped over the broad Campagna. After a moment she heard some one coming after her, and for joy of being pursued she whipped up and galloped faster. Without looking back she knew who was behind, and as her horse flew over the hillocks her heart leaped and sang. When the strong-limbed sorrel came up with the quiet bay mare, they were nearly two miles from their starting-place, and far out of the track of their fellow-hunters. Both were aglow from head to foot, and as they drew rein they looked at each other and laughed.

"Might as well go on now, and come out by the English cemetery," said Roma.

"Good!" said David Rossi.

"But it's half-past two," said Roma, looking at her little watch, "and I'm as hungry as a hunter."

"Naturally," said David Rossi, and they laughed again. There was an osteria somewhere in that neighbourhood. He had known it when he was a boy. They would dine on yellow beans and macaroni.

Presently they saw a house smoking under a scraggy clump of eucalyptus.

It was the osteria, half farmstead and half inn. A timid lad took their horses, an evil-looking old man bowed them into the porch, and an elderly woman, with a frightened expression and a face wrinkled like the bark of a cedar, brought them a bill of fare.

They laughed at everything--at the unfamiliar menu, because it was soiled enough to have served for a year; at the food, because it was so simple; and at the prices, because they were so cheap.

Roma looked over David Rossi's shoulder as he read out the bill of fare, and they ordered the dinner together.

"Macaroni--threepence! Right! Trout--fourpence! Shall we have fourpennyworth of trout? Good! Lamb--sixpence! We'll take two lambs--I mean two sixpenny-worths," and then more laughter.

While the dinner was cooking they went out to walk among the eucalyptus, and came upon a beautiful dell surrounded by trees and carpeted with wild flowers.

"Carnival!" cried Roma. "Now if there was anybody here to throw a flower at one!"

He picked up a handful of violets and tossed them over her head.

"When I was a boy this was where men fought duels," said David Rossi.

"The brutes! What a lovely spot! Must be the place where Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the bulrushes!"

"Or where Adam found Eve in the garden of Eden?"

They looked at each other and smiled.

"What a surprise that must have been to him," said Roma. "Whatever did he think she was, I wonder?"

"An angel who had come down in the moonlight and forgotten to go up in the morning!"

"Nonsense! He would know in a moment she was a woman."

"Think of it! She was the only woman in the world for him!"

"And fancy! He was the only man!"

The dinner was one long delight. Even its drawbacks were no disadvantage. The food was bad, and it was badly cooked and badly served, but nothing mattered.

"Only one fork for all these dishes?" asked David Rossi.

"That's the best of it," said Roma. "You only get one dirty one."

Suddenly she dropped knife and fork, and held up both hands. "I forgot!"

"What?"

"I was to be little Roma all day to-day."

"Why, so you are, and so you have been."

"That cannot be, or you would call her by her name, you know."

"I'll do so the moment she calls me by mine."

"That's not fair," said Roma, and her face flushed up, for the wine of life had risen to her eyes.

In a vineyard below a girl working among the orange trees was singing _stornelli_. It was a song of a mother to her son. He had gone away from the old roof-tree, but he would come back some day. His new home was bright and big, but the old hearthstone would draw him home. Beautiful ladies loved him, but the white-haired mother would kiss him again.

They listened for a short dreaming space, and their laughter ceased and their eyes grew moist. Then they called for the bill, and the old man with the evil face came up with a forced smile from a bank that had clearly no assets of that kind to draw upon.

"You've been a long time in this house, landlord," said David Rossi.

"Very long time, Excellency," said the man.

"You came from the Ciociaria."

"Why, yes, I did," said the man, with a look of surprise. "I was poor then, and later on I lived in the caves and grottoes of Monte Parioli."

"But you knew how to cure the phylloxera in the vines, and when your master died you married his daughter and came into his vineyard."

"Angelica! Here's a gentleman who knows all about us," said the old man, and then, grinning from ear to ear, he added:

"Perhaps your Excellency was the young gentleman who used to visit with his father at the Count's palace on the hill twenty to thirty years ago?"

David Rossi looked him steadfastly in the face and said: "Do you remember the poor boy who lived with you at that time?"

The forced smile was gone in a moment. "We had no boy then, Excellency."

"He came to you from Santo Spirito and you got a hundred francs with him at first, and then you built this pergola."

"If your Excellency is from the Foundling, you may tell them again, as I told the priest who came before, that we never took a boy from there, and we had no money from the people who sent him to London."

"You don't remember him, then?"

"Certainly not."

"Nor you?"

The old woman hesitated, and the old man made mouths at her.

"No, Excellency."