"Then you will wear this to remember me by, and also to look well in the eyes of your _fidanzato_."
"_Grazie Signorina_, a thousand thanks! And may your _innamorato_ be as faithful as you are beautiful."
"Faithful," repeated Ragna to herself when she had closed the door behind the retreating form of the maid. "What is faithlessness,--memory? For us there can be no other."
It pleased her to think of her romance as set apart from the common lot.
"It is an oasis in the desert," she thought,--"it will be as he says, something to look back on all our lives."
For a long time she lay awake, gazing into the dark, her pulses throbbing as she thought of his kisses.
The end of Carnival was approaching and many shops displayed dominoes, masks and various disguises and travesties in their windows. The merry madness was in the air and all Rome was keyed up to a pitch of wild gaiety, so soon to relapse into devotional gloom.
Fru Bjork had taken tickets to the _veglione_ in the Costanzi Theatre, and Astrid was wild with anticipation. She raged at the indifference displayed by Ragna, who was so absorbed in her fool's Paradise that the _veglione_ might as well not have existed. Her detachment was the more noticeable as even Estelle Hagerup had caught the contagion of excitement and was feverishly weighing the rival advantages of a pea-green domino and a purple one. Astrid had chosen pale blue, but Ragna when pressed decided on black.
She had promised to spend the day of the _veglione_ with Prince Mirko. They were to drive out into the country, far from the noisy merry-making, and though he had not said so, she felt that it was to be their last day together--the time for separation was approaching, the end of the idyll at hand.
So on the morning of that fateful _mardi gras_ she met him, as arranged, by the Pantheon. He was waiting with a _botte_, drawn by two strong little Maremmano horses with pheasant feathers stuck in their head-stalls and tinkling bells on the harness. The driver, a bronzed aquiline featured Roman, beamed on her as she approached, having often driven them on shorter excursions.
Mirko helped her in and took his place beside her, laying on her lap a huge bunch of fragrant white narcissus and violets. She buried her face in the flowers, breathing the perfume voluptuously.