"Then the government will buy this statue, I suppose."

"In the end, unless it allows the Vatican to buy it."

"I do not see what is going to happen," said Sabina, growing bewildered.

"The Senator must make everything over to you before it is sold,"

answered Malipieri calmly.

"How can he be made to do that?"

"I do not know, but he shall."

"Do you mean that the law can force him to?"

"The law might, perhaps, but I shall find some much shorter way."

Sabina was silent for a moment.

"But he employs you on this work," she said suddenly.

"Not exactly." Malipieri smiled. "I would not let Volterra pay me to grub underground for his benefit, any more than I would live in his house without paying him rent."

Sabina bit her lip and turned her face away suddenly, for the thoughtless words had hurt her.

"I agreed to make the search merely because I am interested in archaeology," he continued. "Until I met you I did not care what might become of anything we found in the palace."

"Why should you care now?"

The question rose to her lips before she knew what she was saying, for what had gone before had disturbed her a little. It had been a very cruel speech, though he had not meant it. He looked at her thoughtfully.

"I am not quite sure why I care," he answered, "but I do."

Neither spoke for some time.

"I suppose you pity me," Sabina observed at last, rather resentfully.

He said nothing.

"You probably felt sorry for me as soon as you saw me," she continued, leaning back in her chair and speaking almost coldly. "I am an object of pity, of course!"

Malipieri laughed a little at the very girlish speech.

"No," he answered. "I had not thought of you in that light. I liked you, the first time I saw you. That is much simpler than pitying."

He laughed again, but it was at himself.

"You treat me like a child," Sabina said with a little petulance. "You have no right to!"

"Shall I treat you like a woman, Donna Sabina?" he said, suddenly serious.

"Yes. I am sure I am old enough."

"If you were not, I should certainly not feel as I do towards you."

"What do you mean?"

"If you are a woman, you probably guess."

"No."

"You may be offended," suggested Malipieri.

"Not unless you are rude--or pity me." She smiled now.

"Is it very rude to like a person?" he asked. "If you think it is, I will not go on."

"I am not sure," said Sabina demurely, and she looked down.

"In that case it is wiser not to run the risk of offending you past forgiveness!"

It was very amusing to hear him talk, for no man had ever talked to her in this way before. She knew that he was thought immensely clever, but he did not seem at all superior now, and she was glad of it. She should have felt very foolish if he had discoursed to her learnedly about Carthage and antiquities. Instead, he was simple and natural, and she liked him very much; and the little devil that enters into every woman about the age of sixteen and is not often cast out before fifty, even by prayer and fasting, suddenly possessed her.

"Rudeness is not always past forgiveness," she said, with a sweet smile.

Malipieri looked at her gravely and wondered whether he had any right to take up the challenge. He had never been in love with a young girl in his life, and somehow it did not seem fair to speak as he had been speaking. It was very odd that his sense of honour should assert itself just then. It might have been due to the artificial traditions of generations without end, before him. At the same time, he knew something of women, and in her last speech he recognized the womanly cooing, the call of the mate, that has drawn men to happiness or destruction ever since the world began. She was a mere girl, of course, but since he had said so much, she could not help tempting him to go to the end and tell her he loved her.

Though Malipieri did not pretend to be a model of all the virtues, he was thoroughly fair in all his dealings, according to his lights, and just then he would have thought it the contrary of fair to say what she seemed to expect. He knew instinctively that no one had ever said it to her before, which was a good reason for not saying it lightly; and he was sure that he could not say it quite seriously, and almost certain also that she had not even begun to be really in love herself, though he felt that she liked him. On the other hand--for in the flash of a second he argued the case--he did not feel that she was the hypothetical defenceless maiden, helpless to resist the wiles of an equally hypothetical wicked young man. She had been brought up by a worldly mother since she had left the convent where she had associated with other girls, most of whom also had worldly mothers; and some of the wildest blood in Europe ran in her veins.

On the whole, he thought it would be justifiable to tell her exactly what he felt, and she might do as she pleased about answering him.

"I think I shall fall in love with you before long," he said, with almost unnecessary calmness.

Sabina had not expected that the first declaration she received in her life would take this mild form, but it affected her much more strongly than she could understand. Her hand tightened suddenly on the book she held, and she noticed a little fluttering at her heart and in her throat, and at the same time she was conscious of a tremendous determination not to show that she felt anything at all, but to act as if she had heard just such things before, and more also.

"Indeed!" she said, with admirable indifference.

Malipieri looked at her in surprise. An experienced flirt of thirty could not have uttered the single word more effectively.

"I wonder whether you will ever like me better than you do now," he said, by way of answer.

She was wondering, too, but it was not likely that she would admit it.

"I am very fickle," she replied, with a perfectly self-possessed little laugh.

"So am I," Malipieri answered, following her lead. "My most desperate love affairs have never lasted more than a month or two."

"You have had a great many, I daresay," Sabina observed, with no show of interest. She was amazed and delighted to find how easy it was to act her new part.

"And you," he asked, laughing, "how often have you been in love already?"