The Eternal City - Page 61/385

"Let me see you to the door?" he said, and her eyes said openly, "Will

you?"

They walked down the staircase side by side, going step by step, and

almost touching.

"I forgot to give you my address--eighteen Trinità de' Monti," she said.

"Eighteen Trinità de' Monti," he repeated.

They had reached the second storey. "I am trying to remember," she said.

"After all, I think I have seen you before somewhere."

"In a dream, perhaps," he answered.

"Yes," she said. "Perhaps in the dream I spoke about."

They had reached the street, and Roma's carriage, a hired coupé, stood

waiting a few yards from the door.

They shook hands, and at the electric touch she raised her head and gave

him in the darkness the look he had tried to take in the light.

"Until to-morrow then," she said.

"To-morrow morning," he replied.

"To-morrow morning," she repeated, and again in the eye-asking between

them she seemed to say, "Come early, will you not?--there is still so

much to say."

He looked at her with his shining eyes, and something of the boy came

back to his world-worn face as he closed the carriage door.

"Adieu!"

"Adieu!"

She drew up the window, and as the carriage moved away she smiled and

bowed through the glass.