"We have a common ground for it in our interest in antiquities. Is it not true, Signer Malipieri?"

The Baron looked at him and smiled again, as if there were a secret between them, and Malipieri glanced at Sabina.

"It is quite true," he said gravely. "The Baron has read all I have written about Carthage."

Volterra possessed a sort of rough social tact, together with the native astuteness and great knowledge of men which had made him rich and a Senator. He suddenly became voluble and led the conversation in a new direction, which it followed till the end of dinner.

Several people came in afterwards, as often happened, before the coffee was taken away. They were chiefly men in politics, and two of them brought their wives with them. They were not the sort of guests whom the Baroness preferred, for they were not by any means all noble Romans, but they were of importance to her husband and she took great pains to make them welcome. To one she offered his favourite liqueur, which happened to be a Sicilian ratafia; for another she made the Baron send for some of those horribly coarse black cigars known as Tuscans, which some Italians prefer to anything else; for a third, she ordered fresh coffee to be especially made. She took endless trouble.

Malipieri seemed to know none of the guests, and he took advantage of the Baroness's preoccupation for their comforts to sit down by Sabina.

He did not look at her, and she thought he looked bored, as he sat a moment in silence. Then a thin deputy with a magnificent forehead and thick grey hair began to hold forth on the subject of a projected divorce law and the guests gathered round him. Sabina had never heard of Sydney Smith, but she had a suspicion that nobody could be as great as the speaker looked. While she was thinking of this, Malipieri spoke to her in a low voice.

"I suppose that you are stopping in the house," he said.

"Yes."

Sabina turned her eyes a little, but did not look straight at him. She saw, however, that he was still watching the people in the room, and still looked bored, and she was quite unprepared for what followed.

"Are the affairs of your family finally settled?" he enquired, without changing his tone.

Sabina was so much surprised that she waited a moment before answering. Her first instinct was to ask him stiffly why he put such a question, and she would have replied to it in that way if it had come from any other guest in the room; but she changed her mind almost instantly.

"No one has told me anything," she said simply, in a low voice.

Malipieri turned his head a little with a quick movement, and clasped his brown hands over one knee.

"You know nothing?" he asked. "Nothing whatever about the matter?"

"Nothing."

He bit his lip as if he were indignant, and were repressing an exclamation.

"No one has written to me--for a long time," Sabina said, after a moment.

She had been on the point of saying that she had never received a line from any member of her family since the crash, but that seemed to sound like a confidence, and what she really said was quite true.

"Has not the Senator told you anything either?" Malipieri asked.

"No. I suppose he does not like to speak about our misfortunes before me."

"Have you, I mean you yourself, any interest in the Palazzo Conti now?

Can you tell me that?"

"I know nothing--nothing!" Sabina repeated the word with a slight tremor, for just then she felt her position more keenly than ever before. "Why do you ask?"

She could not help putting the question which rose to her lips the second time, but there was no coldness in her voice. She was very lonely, and she felt that Malipieri was speaking from some honourable motive.

"I am living in the palace," Malipieri answered.

Sabina looked up quickly, with an expression of interest in her pale young face. The thought that the man beside her was living in her old home was like a bond of acquaintance.

"Really?" she cried. "In which part of the house?"

"Do not seem interested, please," said Malipieri, suddenly looking very bored again. "If you do, we shall not be allowed to talk. I am living in the little apartment on the intermediate story. They tell me that a chaplain once lived there."

"I know where it is," answered Sabina, "but I was never in the rooms.

They used to be shut up, I think."

The deputy who was haranguing on the subject of divorce seemed to be approaching his peroration. His great voice filled the large room with incessant noise, and everybody seemed anxiously waiting for a chance to contradict him. Malipieri was in no danger of being overheard.

"If it happens," he said, "that I wish to communicate with you on a matter of importance, how can I reach you best?"

He asked the question quite naturally, as if he had known Sabina all his life. At first she was so much surprised that she could hardly speak.

"I--I do not know," she stammered.

She had never received letters from any one but her own family or her school friends, and a very faint colour rose in her pale cheek.

Malipieri looked more bored and weary than ever.

"It may be absolutely necessary for me to write to you before long,"

he said. "Shall I write by post?"

Sabina hesitated.

"Is there no one in all Rome whom you can trust to bring a note and give it to you when you are alone?"

"There is Signor Sassi," Sabina answered almost instinctively. "But really, why should you--"

"How can I find Sassi?" asked Malipieri, interrupting the question.

"Who is he?"

"He was our agent. Is he gone? The old porter will know where to find him. I think he lived near the palace. But perhaps the porter has been sent away too."

"He is still there. Have you been made to sign any papers since you have been here?"

"No."

"Will you promise me something?"

Sabina could not understand how it was that a man who had been a stranger two hours earlier was speaking to her almost as if he were an intimate friend, still less why she no longer felt that she ought to check him and assert her dignity.

"If it is right, I will promise it," she answered quietly, and looking down.

"It is right," he said. "If the Senator, or any one else asks you to sign a paper, will you promise to consult me before doing so?"

"But I hardly know you!" she laughed, a little shyly.

"It is of no use to waste time and trouble on social conventions,"

said Malipieri. "If you do not trust me, can you trust this Sassi?"