'My own love?'
'This gentleman wishes to model my bust. Please speak to him.'
The Cavaliere gave a little chuckle. 'Already?' he cried.
Rowland looked round, equally surprised at the promptitude of the proposal. Roderick stood planted before the young girl with his arms folded, looking at her as he would have done at the Medicean Venus. He never paid compliments, and Rowland, though he had not heard him speak, could imagine the startling distinctness with which he made his request.
'He saw me a year ago,' the young girl went on, 'and he has been thinking of me ever since.' Her tone, in speaking, was peculiar; it had a kind of studied inexpressiveness, which was yet not the vulgar device of a drawl.
'I must make your daughter's bust—that 's all, madame!' cried Roderick, with warmth.
'I had rather you made the poodle's,' said the young girl. 'Is it very tiresome? I have spent half my life sitting for my photograph, in every conceivable attitude and with every conceivable coiffure. I think I have posed enough.'
'My dear child,' said Mrs. Light, 'it may be one's duty to pose. But as to my daughter's sitting to you, sir—to a young sculptor whom we don't know—it is a matter that needs reflection. It is not a favor that 's to be had for the mere asking.'
'If I don't make her from life,' said Roderick, with energy, 'I will make her from memory, and if the thing 's to be done, you had better have it done as well as possible.'
'Mamma hesitates,' said Miss Light, 'because she does n't know whether you mean she shall pay you for the bust. I can assure you that she will not pay you a sou.'
'My darling, you forget yourself,' said Mrs. Light, with an attempt at majestic severity. 'Of course,' she added, in a moment, with a change of note, 'the bust would be my own property.'
'Of course!' cried Roderick, impatiently.
'Dearest mother,' interposed the young girl, 'how can you carry a marble bust about the world with you? Is it not enough to drag the poor original?'
'My dear, you 're nonsensical!' cried Mrs. Light, almost angrily.
'You can always sell it,' said the young girl, with the same artful artlessness.
Mrs. Light turned to Rowland, who pitied her, flushed and irritated. 'She is very wicked to-day!'
The Cavaliere grinned in silence and walked away on tiptoe, with his hat to his lips, as if to leave the field clear for action. Rowland, on the contrary, wished to avert the coming storm. 'You had better not refuse,' he said to Miss Light, 'until you have seen Mr. Hudson's things in the marble. Your mother is to come and look at some that I possess.'
'Thank you; I have no doubt you will see us. I dare say Mr. Hudson is very clever; but I don't care for modern sculpture. I can't look at it!'
'You shall care for my bust, I promise you!' cried Roderick, with a laugh.
'To satisfy Miss Light,' said the Cavaliere, 'one of the old Greeks ought to come to life.'
'It would be worth his while,' said Roderick, paying, to Rowland's knowledge, his first compliment.
'I might sit to Phidias, if he would promise to be very amusing and make me laugh. What do you say, Stenterello? would you sit to Phidias?'
'We must talk of this some other time,' said Mrs. Light. 'We are in Rome for the winter. Many thanks. Cavaliere, call the carriage.' The Cavaliere led the way out, backing like a silver-stick, and Miss Light, following her mother, nodded, without looking at them, to each of the young men.
'Immortal powers, what a head!' cried Roderick, when they had gone. 'There 's my fortune!'
'She is certainly very beautiful,' said Rowland. 'But I 'm sorry you have undertaken her bust.'
'And why, pray?'
'I suspect it will bring trouble with it.'
'What kind of trouble?'
'I hardly know. They are queer people. The mamma, I suspect, is the least bit of an adventuress. Heaven knows what the daughter is.'
'She 's a goddess!' cried Roderick.
'Just so. She is all the more dangerous.'
'Dangerous? What will she do to me? She does n't bite, I imagine.'
'It remains to be seen. There are two kinds of women—you ought to know it by this time—the safe and the unsafe. Miss Light, if I am not mistaken, is one of the unsafe. A word to the wise!'
'Much obliged!' said Roderick, and he began to whistle a triumphant air, in honor, apparently, of the advent of his beautiful model.
In calling this young lady and her mamma 'queer people,' Rowland but roughly expressed his sentiment. They were so marked a variation from the monotonous troop of his fellow-country people that he felt much curiosity as to the sources of the change, especially since he doubted greatly whether, on the whole, it elevated the type. For a week he saw the two ladies driving daily in a well-appointed landau, with the Cavaliere and the poodle in the front seat. From Mrs. Light he received a gracious salute, tempered by her native majesty; but the young girl, looking straight before her, seemed profoundly indifferent to observers. Her extraordinary beauty, however, had already made observers numerous and given the habitues of the Pincian plenty to talk about. The echoes of their commentary reached Rowland's ears; but he had little taste for random gossip, and desired a distinctly veracious
