confection of black grenadine she was an agreeable morsel for the
male eye to dwell upon.

There were the usual company there: the younger diplomats from the
Embassies; a sprinkling of trim Italian officers in their pretty
uniforms; French and Austrian ladies; as well as the attractive-
looking native and American representatives of the elite of Roman
society.

The tables began to fill up before the Ebleys had finished their
fish, and numbers of the parties seemed to know one another and
nod and exchange words en passant.

But there was one table laid for a single person which remained
empty until the entrees were being handed, and Stella, with her
fresh interest in the whole scene, wondered for whom it was
reserved.

He came in presently--and he really merits a descriptive paragraph
all to himself.

He was a very tall man and well made, with broad shoulders and a
small head. His evening clothes, though beautifully pressed, with
that look which only a thoroughly good valet knows how to stamp
upon his master's habiliments as a daily occurrence, were of
foreign cut and hand, and his shirt, unstarched, was of the finest
pleated cambric.

These trifles, however, were not what rendered him remarkable, but
that his light brown hair was worn parted in the middle and waved