"Behold the punctual Ragna! Who's late this time, Miss?"
"I'll be ready in a second," said Ragna flying about the room, while Fru Bjork subsided to a chair, settling her bonnet strings under her double chin.
"There, there!" she said in her comfortable way, "don't hurry so, there's no harm done!"
"Why, my child," exclaimed Fru Bjork, "you have one grey glove and one tan one, and you have put your green coat over your blue frock!"
Astrid giggled, "The air of Rome must have gone to your head!"
Ragna, much confused, rectified her mistakes, and the party set out. They drove to the Doria Pamphilj gardens and afterwards to the Janiculum. Fru Bjork stopped the carriage and they got out and walked. Ragna loved the view from that point better than any other she had seen; the huge mass of St. Peter's, towering like a Titan above the city dwarfing all else by the symmetrical immensity of the dome, fascinated and held her. It dominated humanity, she thought even as it dominated Rome,--the Mother Church, Mistress of the World, rising triumphant on the ruins of the past.
She would willingly have stood there for hours, but the early winter dusk was falling; Astrid shivered and Fru Bjork said "Home."
The return drive through the Trastevere was a delight to Ragna, though Astrid turned up her delicate nose at the variety of smells, and Fru Bjork commented at length on the unhealthfulness of defective drainage. To Ragna it seemed a fairy world, and the hour after sunset, "blind man's holiday" brought out all the wonder and mystery of it, throwing a kindly veil over dirt and sordid details. Lights twinkled in the winding streets, and as they passed Hilda's Tower they saw the glow of the lamp in the shrine. And beneath it all, there ran as an undercurrent in Ragna's mind, the Prince in Rome!
When Ragna opened her eyes the next morning, she had the impression of opening them to a new life, different from that of yesterday; there was something to look forward to,--just what, her sleepy memory refused to say. Then as she stirred and sat up, it came back to her, and again she declared: "I shall not go to meet him, it would be foolish!"
But she dressed with unusual care, and went to the dining-room for breakfast, afraid of finding Astrid ready to accompany her, and at the same time almost hoping for it. Astrid, however, had elected to spend the morning in bed; she had got a chill, she said, from the drive the day before, and yawning, buried her face in the sleeve of her blue flannel bed-jacket. So Ragna started out alone, and resolutely set her face towards the Vatican. She had gone but a short distance, however, when she wheeled about, and walked as rapidly in the opposite direction.
