"'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls,--the world.'"
Jack made no answer for a moment. Then she said quietly, "It is a beautiful description; thank you for repeating it to me." She did not feel in the mood for talking tonight. The world was too beautiful and too strange. Here was she, Jacqueline Ralston, a girl raised on a ranch in far-off Wyoming, in the ancient city of Rome. And Captain Madden, the friend near her, why should a man so much older and wiser and with so great a knowledge of the world that even Rome itself did not seem unfamiliar to him, feel an interest in her? She was neither beautiful nor clever like Olive and Jean. Yet Jack, though not twenty, was woman enough to realize that Captain Madden liked her best.
The next instant she started to get up when, placing his hand on her arm, her companion held her back.
"I don't want to speak to you too soon," he whispered. "I don't wish to hurry or frighten you. But you must know why I have so longed to be with you alone for a few minutes tonight."
And then, suddenly appearing from out of nowhere, Ruth Drew actually seemed to swoop down upon the man and girl. Almost immediately she took tight hold on Jack.
"Let us go to our carriage at once, if you please, Captain Madden," she demanded brusquely. "We have stayed out in the night air far too long as it is. It is time we were safe in bed."
Then, although Jack kept obediently close to her chaperon until they were back in their hotel, that night when the three girls had fallen asleep, Ruth was so restless that, putting on her dressing gown, she walked up and down her room for a quarter of an hour. It simply could not be possible that this Captain Madden was falling in love with their Jack or that she could entertain the slightest interest in him! Why Jack was still a child and the man twice her age! Besides, what in the world did they know of him except what he himself had told them? The man might be a fortune hunter, he might be most anything! Ruth wiped her eyes in consternation at the thought of what Jim Colter would say and do if she allowed his splendid, brave Jack to become entangled in an unfortunate romance. Then she asked herself: Was there no one in Rome who could tell them of Captain Madden's history? Recalling Jean's statement that the Princess Colonna and Captain Madden were acquaintances before their meeting on board the Martha Washington, Ruth relieved her anxiety by writing a long letter to Jean. In it she confessed her own uneasiness and asked that Jean inquire of the Princess what knowledge she had of Captain Madden's past. But she also insisted that Jean keep her reason for wishing to know a secret and that beyond everything else she should never betray their suspicions to Jack.