group. In that singular abstraction which comes so frequently in
moments of high emotion, he let his glance wander to the pictures on
the wall, the enormities in embroidery which adorned the chair backs,
the garish hues of the rug lying before the open grate. Then it
occurred to him, with a vague sense of amusement, how great was the
incongruity between such a setting as this vulgar boarding-house
reception-room, and the woman before him. The idea brought to his mind
the contrast between the life to which Helen had come, and the life at
Rome, artistic, rich, and full of possibilities, which she had left.

The thought of Rome recalled instantly the old days there, almost a
score of years ago, when he had first known Ninitta. So vivid were the
memories which awakened, that he seemed to see again the Roman studio,
the fat old aunt, voluble and sharp eyed, who always accompanied her
niece when the girl posed; and most clearly of all did his inner vision
perceive the fresh, silent maiden whose exquisite figure was at once
the admiration and the despair of all the young artists in Rome. He
remembered how Hoffmeir had discovered the girl drawing water from an
old broken fountain he had gone out to sketch; and the difficulties
that had to be overcome before she could be persuaded to pose. The
Capri maidens are brought up to be averse to posing, and Ninitta had
not long enough breathed the air of Rome to have overcome the
prejudices of her youth. He reflected, with a bitterness rendered vague
by a certain strange impersonality of his mood, how different would
have been his life had Hoffmeir been unable to overcome the girl's
scruples. He wondered whether the fat old aunt, and the greasy, good-
natured little priest with whom she had taken counsel, would have urged
Ninitta to take up the life of a model, could they have foreseen all
the results to which this course was to lead in the end.