Alone on the roof he pondered this, his hands clasped across his knees, his head tipped back, looking across the ancient city at the man who had kindled a fire in those old ashes.
And then, little by little, as the silence and beauty of the night spread out before his eyes in widening silver circles, he ceased pondering, ceased thinking even vaguely of himself, his life, other men's lives. He sat dreaming, his eyes as wide as a child's, his lips relaxed, his face absent and unconscious of self as that of one who listens absorbed and entranced to distant music. Moonlight—Italy!
Aware that he was no longer alone, he turned his head slowly and saw that a tall girl in white had come silently up the winding iron steps and was standing at the top looking at the sky. The moon shone full and soft upon her, from head to foot. He saw her as clearly as though it had been noon, and yet she looked as unearthly and mysterious as the night. She evidently thought herself alone. She stood perfectly motionless, her dark eyes fixed on a palely distant star. Neale thought he had never in his life seen anything more touching than the profound sadness of her young face.
He had not moved, had scarcely had time to draw breath; but she had felt him there. She turned her face toward where he sat, her head a little bent, searching the darkness of the corner from under long, finely-drawn brows. She saw him, looked straight into his eyes, her own shining deep and soft upon him. He was still too lost in his own enchanted dream to be able to move, to look away. He gazed at her as though she were part of the night, of the beauty.
Without a sound she turned back and sank like a dream from his sight.
CHAPTER XLII
The next morning very early when he stepped out of his room, he saw at the end of the hall a little group of three people, the half-grown burly boy who carried water-pitchers and blacked shoes, the tall, aproned, black-moustached house-servant who swept the rooms and waited on the table, and the girl he had seen on the roof the night before. He knew her at once although she was in a street-dress now, and he saw only her back and the gleaming coils of her hair. He found that he had no intention of doing anything in the world but of going to speak to her, somehow; and turning down the tiled corridor he walked towards the three. They had their backs towards him and were all talking Italian with extreme rapidity. "Oh!" it came to Neale with a shock, "she was an Italian!" Of course, with those dark eyes and hair. It had not once occurred to him, during the night, that she might be an Italian. He felt hot with vexation. Damn it! He spoke so little Italian!
He stopped short in the passage-way irresolute, suffering that most wretched and miserable of human embarrassments, the one that began with the Tower of Babel. He wasn't going to make an idiot of himself trying to talk to her in that horrible broken tourist-Italian of his. His disappointment was so acute that he could not for an instant collect himself enough to turn away, and stood glowering at the three backs.
They were talking far too rapidly for him to understand what they said, but by their pantomime it was plain that the girl was moved by something which left the two men quite unaffected, that she was making a low-toned agitated appeal to them, which they received with the shrugged shoulders and uplifted eyebrows of reasonable men before an unreasonable idea. She was pointing out, leaning forward, shrinking back, she was saying, "Oh! oh! oh!" her low voice rising to a little wail of distress that went to Neale's heart. He looked over their backs out of the window following the direction of the girl's hand, and saw at first only the beautiful, early-morning, myriad-winged swoop of the Roman swallows filling the bright air with their rhythmic wheelings. He had watched them for hours on his former visit, had thought them one of the most purely lovely elements of the city's charm.