"I was planning for the future of Rome,—and dreaming of the past."
She bent her proud head, partly in acknowledgment of his words, partly to conceal her own confusion.
"The past is buried," she replied coldly, "and the future dark and uncertain."
"And why may it not be mine,—to revive that past?"
"No sunrise can revive that which has died in the sunset glow."
"Then you too despair of Rome ever being more than a memory of her dead self?"
She looked at him amusedly.
"I am living in the world—not in a dream."
Otto pointed to the Capitoline hill.
"Yet see how beautiful it is, this Rome of the past!" he spoke with repressed enthusiasm. "Is it not worth braving the dangers of the avalanches that threaten to crush rider and horse—even the wrath of your countrymen, who see in us but unbidden, unwelcome invaders? Ah! Little do they know the magic which draws us hither to their sunny shores from the gloom of our Northern forests! Little they know the transformation this land of flowers works on the frozen heart, that yearns for your glowing, sun-tinted vales!"