"It has been wonderful!"
"Then you are satisfied with your cicerone? You are convinced that a guide-book is unnecessary?"
"Oh," she answered, "the book makes it all into a cemetery,—or a table of dates,—but you have made Rome live.—It can never be the same now, as it was before; I have been there, I have seen it, it is part of me,—and without you I should never have known anything of it at all. How do you do it? How do you bring it all to life?"
Mirko smiled, well pleased with the result of his effort and with himself.
"I have been there."
"Been there! How?"
"I was once a Roman, I feel it, I know it!"
"Yes," she answered, "I think you must have been,—I can feel that you have been—you have made me feel it."
They were silent for a few minutes, and Ragna repeated:
"It has been wonderful!"