Babylon. Volume 3. Allen Grant

with a decorous smile, as who should gracefully concede that Hiram had no doubt a sort of right in his own small way to some kind of cognomen or other. ‘And are you still painting, Mr. Winthrop?’

      ‘I am,’ Hiram answered shortly. [The subject was one that did not interest him.] ‘And you, Miss Russell? Have you come here to spend the winter?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ Gwen replied, addressing herself, however, rather to Audouin than to Hiram. ‘You see we haven’t forgotten our promise. But we’re not stopping at the hotel this time, we’re at the Villa Panormi – just outside the town, you know, on the road to the Ponte Molle.

      A cousin of ours, a dear stupid old fellow – ’

      ‘Gwen, my dear! now really you know – the Earl of Beaminster, Mr. Audouin.’

      ‘Yes, that’s his name; Lord Beaminster, and a dear old stupid as ever was born, too, I can tell you. Well, he’s taken the Villa Panormi for the season; it belongs to some poor wretched creature of a Roman prince, I believe (his grandfather was lackey to a cardinal), who’s in want of money dreadfully, and he lets it to my cousin to go and gamble away the proceeds at Monte Carlo. It’s just outside the Porta del Popolo, about a mile off; and the gardens are really quite delightful. You must both of you come there very often to see us.’

      ‘But really, Gwen, we must ask Beaminster first, you know, before we begin introducing our friends to him,’ the colonel interjected apologetically, casting down a furtive and uneasy glance at Hiram’s costume, which certainly displayed a most admired artistic disorder. ‘We ought to send him to call first at Mr. – ur – Winthrop’s studio.’

      ‘Of course,’ Gwen answered. ‘And so he shall go this very afternoon, if I tell him to. The dear old stupid always does whatever I order him.’

      ‘If we continue to take up the pavement in this way,’ Audouin put in gravely, ‘we shall get taken up ourselves by the active and intelligent police officers of a redeemed Italy. Which way are you going now, Miss Russell? towards the Piazza? Then we’ll go with you if you will allow us. – Hiram, my dear fellow, if you’ll permit me to suggest it, it’s very awkward walking four abreast on these narrow Roman side-walks – pavements, I mean; forgive the Americanism, Miss Russell. Yes, that’s better so. And when did you and the colonel come to Rome. Now tell me?’

      In a moment, much to Hiram’s chagrin, and the colonel’s too, Audouin had managed to lead the way, tête-à-tête with Gwen, shuffling off the two others to follow behind, and get along as best they might in the background together. Now the colonel was not a distinguished conversationalist, and Hiram was hardly in a humour for talking, so after they had interchanged a few harmless conventionalities and a mild platitude or two about the weather, they both relapsed into moody silence, and occupied themselves by catching a scrap every now and then of what Gwen and Audouin were saying in front of them.

      ‘And that very clever Mr. Churchill, too, Mr. Audouin! I hear he’s getting on quite wonderfully. Lord Beaminster bought one of his groups, you know, and brought him into fashion – partly by my pushing, I must confess, to be quite candid – and now, I’m told, he’s commanding almost any price he chooses to ask in the way of sculpture. We haven’t seen him yet, of course, but I mean papa and my cousin to look him up in his own quarters at the very earliest opportunity.’

      ‘Oh, a clever enough young artist, certainly, but not really, Miss Russell, half so genuine an artist in feeling as my friend Win-throp.’

      Hiram could have fallen on his neck that moment for that half-unconscious piece of kindly recommendation.

      A few steps further they reached the corner of the Via de’ Condotti, and Gwen paused for a second as she looked across the street, with a little sudden cry of recognition. A handsome young man was coming round the corner from the Piazza di Spagna, with a gipsy-looking girl leaning lightly on his arm, and talking to him with much evident animation. It was Colin and Minna, going out together on Minna’s second holiday, to see the wonders of the Vatican and St. Peter’s.

      ‘Mr. Churchill!’ Gwen cried, coming forward cordially to meet him. ‘What a delightful rencontre! We were just talking of you.

      And here are other friends, you see, besides – Mr. Winthrop, my father, and Mr. Audouin.’ Minna stood half aside in a little embarrassment, wondering who on earth the grand lady could be (she had penetration enough to recognise at once that she was a grand lady) talking so familiarly with our Colin.

      ‘Miss Howard-Russell!’ Colin cried on his side, taking her hand warmly. ‘Then you’ve come back again! I’m so glad to see you! And you too, Mr. Audouin; this is really a great pleasure. – Miss Russell, I owe you so many thanks. It was you, I believe, who sent my first patron, Lord Beaminster, to visit my studio.’

      ‘Oh, don’t speak of it, please, Mr. Churchill. It’s we who owe you thanks rather, for the pleasure your beautiful group of Autumn has given us. And dear stupid old Lord Beaminster used to amuse everybody so much by telling them how he wanted you to put a clock-dial in the place of the principal figure, until I managed at last to laugh him out of it. I made his life a burden to him, I assure you, by getting him to see how very ridiculous it was of him to try to spoil your lovely composition.’

      They talked for a minute or two longer at the street corner, Gwen explaining once more to Colin how she and the colonel had come as Lord Beaminster’s guests to the Villa Panormi; and meanwhile poor little Minna stood there out in the cold, growing redder every second, and boiling over with indignation to think that that horrid Miss Howard-Russell should have dropped down upon them from the clouds at the very wrong moment, just on purpose to make barefaced love so openly to her Colin.

      It was Gwen herself, however, who first took notice of Minna, whom she saw standing a little apart, and looking very much out of it indeed among so many greetings of old acquaintances. ‘And your friend?’ she said to Colin kindly. ‘You haven’t introduced her to us yet. May we have the pleasure?’ And she took a step forward with womanly gentleness to relieve the poor girl from her obvious embarrassment.

      ‘Excuse me, Minna dear,’ Colin said, taking her hand and leading her forward quietly.

      ‘My cousin, Miss Wroe: Miss Howard-Bussell, Colonel Howard-Russell, Mr. Audouin, Mr. Winthrop.’

      Minna bowed to them all stiffly with cheeks burning, and then fell back again at once angrily into her former position.

      ‘And have you come to Rome lately, Miss Wroe?’ Gwen asked of her with genuine kindness. ‘Are you here on a visit to your cousin, whose work we all admire so greatly?’

      ‘I came a week ago,’ Minna answered defiantly, blurting out the whole truth (lest she should seem to be keeping back anything) and pitting her whole social nonentity, as it were, against the grand lady’s assured position.

      ‘I came a week ago; and I’m a governess to a little Russian girl here; and I’m going to stop all the winter.’

      ‘That’ll be very nice for all of us,’ Gwen put in softly, with a look that might almost have disarmed Minna’s hasty suspicions. ‘And how exceedingly pleasant for you to have your cousin here, too! I suppose it was partly on that account, now, that you decided upon coming here?’

      ‘It was,’ Minna answered shortly, without vouchsafing any further explanation.

      ‘And where are you going now, Mr. Churchill?’ Gwen asked, seeing that Minna was clearly not in a humour for conversation. ‘Are you showing your cousin the sights of Rome, I wonder?’