Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII. Saint Cecilia's

Rowland went often to the Coliseum; he never wearied of it. One morning,
about a month after his return from Frascati, as he was strolling across
the vast arena, he observed a young woman seated on one of the fragments
of stone which are ranged along the line of the ancient parapet. It
seemed to him that he had seen her before, but he was unable to localize
her face. Passing her again, he perceived that one of the little
red-legged French soldiers at that time on guard there had approached
her and was gallantly making himself agreeable. She smiled brilliantly,
and Rowland recognized the smile (it had always pleased him) of a
certain comely Assunta, who sometimes opened the door for Mrs. Light's
visitors. He wondered what she was doing alone in the Coliseum, and
conjectured that Assunta had admirers as well as her young mistress, but
that, being without the same domiciliary conveniencies, she was using
this massive heritage of her Latin ancestors as a boudoir. In other
words, she had an appointment with her lover, who had better, from
present appearances, be punctual. It was a long time since Rowland had
ascended to the ruinous upper tiers of the great circus, and, as the day
was radiant and the distant views promised to be particularly clear,
he determined to give himself the pleasure. The custodian unlocked the
great wooden wicket, and he climbed through the winding shafts, where
the eager Roman crowds had billowed and trampled, not pausing till he
reached the highest accessible point of the ruin. The views were as fine
as he had supposed; the lights on the Sabine Mountains had never been
more lovely. He gazed to his satisfaction and retraced his steps. In
a moment he paused again on an abutment somewhat lower, from which
the glance dropped dizzily into the interior. There are chance
anfractuosities of ruin in the upper portions of the Coliseum which
offer a very fair imitation of the rugged face of an Alpine cliff. In
those days a multitude of delicate flowers and sprays of wild herbage
had found a friendly soil in the hoary crevices, and they bloomed and
nodded amid the antique masonry as freely as they would have done in the
virgin rock. Rowland was turning away, when he heard a sound of voices
rising up from below. He had but to step slightly forward to find
himself overlooking two persons who had seated themselves on a narrow
ledge, in a sunny corner. They had apparently had an eye to extreme
privacy, but they had not observed that their position was commanded by
Rowland's stand-point. One of these airy adventurers was a lady, thickly
veiled, so that, even if he had not been standing directly above her,
Rowland could not have seen her face. The other was a young man, whose