The pretty Comtesse turned and smiled.
"Is it you, Katrine? Will you come out here? It is not cold, and there is a lace wrap on the chair,—put it round your dear old head and come and be romantic with me!" and she laughed as the worthy Bozier obeyed her, and came cautiously out among the angels' sculptured wings. "Ah, dear Katrine! The happy days are gone when a dark-eyed Roman lover would come strolling down a street like this to strike the chords of his mandoline, and sing the dear old song,
"'Ti voglio bene assai, E tu non pensi a me!'"
Without thinking about it, she sang this refrain suddenly in her sweet mezzo-soprano, every note ringing clear on the silence of the night, and as she did so a man of slim figure and medium height, stepped out of the dark shadows and looked up. His half laughing eyes, piercing in their regard, met the dreamy soft ones of the pretty woman sitting among the angels' heads above him—and pausing a moment he hesitated—then lifted his hat. His face was excessively delicate in outline and very pale, but a half mischievous smile softened and sweetened the firm lines of his mouth and chin, and as the moonbeams played caressingly on his close curling crop of fair hair, he looked different enough to most of the men in Rome to be considered singular as well as handsome. Sylvie, hidden as she was among the shadows, blushed and drew back, a little vexed with herself,—the worthy Madame Bozier was very properly scandalised.
"My dear child!" she murmured, "Remember—we are in Rome. People judge things so strangely! What an unfortunate error!—"
But Sylvie became suddenly unmanageable. Her love of coquetry and mischief got the better of her, and she thrust out her pretty head over the balcony once more.
"Be quiet, Katrine!" she whispered, "I was longing for a romance, and here is one!" And detaching a rose from her dress she tossed it lightly to the stranger below. He caught it—then looked up once more.
"Till we meet," he said softly in English,—and moving on among the shadows, disappeared.
"Now, who do you suppose HE was?" enquired Sylvie, leaning back against the edge of the balcony, with an arch glance at her gouvernante, "It was someone unlike anyone else here, I am sure! It was somebody with very bright eyes,—laughing eyes,—audacious eyes, because they laughed at me! They sparkled at me like stars on a frosty night! Katrine, have you ever been for a sleigh-ride in America? No, I did not take you there,—I forgot! You would have had the rheumatism, poor dear! Well, when you are in America during the winter, you go for rides over the snow in a big sleigh, with tinkling bells fastened to the horses, and you see the stars flash as you pass—like the eyes of that interesting gentleman just now. His face was like a cameo—I wonder who he is! I shall find out! I must do something desperate for Rome is so terribly dull! But I feel better now! I like that man's eyes. They are SUCH a contrast to the sleepy tiger eyes of the Marquis Fontenelle!"
"My dear Sylvie!" remonstrated Madame Bozier, "How can you run on in this way? Do you want to break any more hearts? You are like a lamp for unfortunate moths to burn themselves in!"