"Don Agostino will spend the evening with us," said Silvio to his father, "and early to-morrow morning I am going back with him to Montefiano."
Giacinta looked somewhat perplexed. "Do you know," she said, "we had settled to dine at the Castello di Costantino this evening? You see, Silvio, I had no idea you were coming back, and still less that we should have a visitor—"
"But we will all go and dine at the Costantino," interposed the professor, jovially. "Why not? We shall be a party of four—and four is a very good number to sit at table, but not to drive in a botte—so we will have two botti, and then nobody need sit on the back seat. You will go with Silvio, Giacinta, and monsignore and I will go together."
Don Agostino hesitated for a moment. "It is a place where one may meet people," he said, "and nobody knows that I am in Rome—"
"No, no," returned the professor, hastily, "you are not likely to meet any one you know at the Costantino, unless it be Countess Locatelli—and you certainly would not mind meeting her?"
"On the contrary," said Don Agostino. "It is always a pleasure to meet her—and to talk to her. Doubly so," he added, "after so long an exile at Montefiano. I do not find the female society of Montefiano very—what shall I say? sharpening to the intellect. My house-keeper is occasionally amusing—but limited as to her subjects."
Silvio and his father both laughed. "At any rate, she gives you a better dinner than you will get to-night," said the former.
A quarter of an hour's drive brought them to the Aventine, the most unspoiled and picturesque of the seven hills of Rome, with its secluded convent-gardens and ancient churches, its wealth of tradition and legend. In no other quarter of Rome—not even in the Forum, nor among the imperial ruins of the Palatine—does the spirit of the past seem to accompany one's every step as on the almost deserted Aventine. Especially as evening draws on, and the shadows begin to creep over the vineyards and fruit-gardens beyond the city walls; as the scattered ruins that have glowed rose-red in the rays of the setting sun now stand out—purple masses against the green background of the campagna, and Tiber reflects the orange and saffron tints of the sky, the dead present seems to be enwrapped by the living past in these groves and gardens hidden away on the Aventine and far removed from the turmoil and vulgarity of modern Rome.
In those years the so-called Castello di Costantino was not the well-known resort that it has recently become. It was, indeed, little more than a somewhat superior trattoria, where one ate a bad Roman dinner and drank good Roman wine on a terrace commanding one of the most picturesque, as it is assuredly one of the most interesting, views in the world. In those days it was not the scene of pompous gatherings in honor of foreign or home celebrities, followed by wearisome speeches breathing mutual admiration in hackneyed phrases. A few artists, a few secretaries of embassies left to conduct international affairs while their chiefs were in cooler climates; a few ladies of the Roman world who happened to be still left in the city, these, and a family party or two of the Roman mezzo-ceto, were its occasional visitors in the hot summer evenings when it is pleasant to get away from the baked pavements and streets of the town, and to breathe the fresh, sweet air stealing in from the open country and the sea.
The terrace behind the restaurant was almost deserted, and Professor Rossano selected a table at one corner of it, whence an uninterrupted view could be obtained over a part of the city, and across the campagna to the Sabine mountains in the nearer background; while between these and the Alban Hills the higher summits of the Leonessa range glowed red against the far horizon as they caught the last rays of the setting sun.