vase three thousand years old and so beautiful that one could say one’s prayers before it. Or I will show you bits of stucco, fine and chaste as frost, and more lovely,—or we will go to visit a palace built by Michael Angelo, which has a grave beauty that rests one like quiet music.”
His voice, warm and vibrating, was in itself a definite wooing, and the room and the people in it did not exist for her while she listened to this man of another race,—a race more vivid, expressive, and eloquent than her own. She felt the man was calling her, not to see vases and statues, but to partake, with him, of the raptures and mysteries of life.
There was a slight pause; then, “Will you let me be your guide?” he asked.
Anne hesitated, thinking what this might mean, and while she sought to think clearly she was disturbingly conscious of the vitality and charm of the Italian as he bent his dark head and waited for her answer. She gave it almost involuntarily:—
“I should like to see Rome in that way—with you. Of course, I will let you show it to me.”
Curatulo did not lift his head at once.
“When can we start?” he asked.
“You know,” she said, “that we cannot go alone.”
He looked at her with quick reproach.
51
