"I have never spoken of this to any other man," she said. "I don't know
why I should mention it to you--to you of all men."
She had risen to her feet, and he stepped up to her, and looking
straight into her eyes he said: "Have you ever seen me before?"
"Never," she answered.
"Sit down," he said. "I have something to say to you."
She sat down, and a peculiar expression, almost a crafty one, came into
her face.
"You have told me a little of your life," he said. "Let me tell you
something of mine."
She smiled again. These big children called men were almost to be
pitied. She had expected a fight, but the man had thrown up the sponge
from the outset, and now he was going to give himself into her hands.
Only for that pathetic look in his eyes and that searching tone in his
voice she could have found it in her heart to laugh.
She let her cape drop back from her shoulders, revealing her round bust
and swanlike arms, and crossing one leg over the other she displayed the
edge of a lace skirt and the point of a red slipper. Then she coughed a
little behind a perfumed lace handkerchief and prepared to listen.
"You are the daughter of an ancient family," he said, "older than the
house it lived in, and prouder than a line of kings. And whatever
sorrows you may have seen, you knew what it was to have a mother who
nursed you and a father who loved you, and a home that was your own. Can
you realise what it is to have known neither father nor mother, to be
homeless, nameless, and alone?"
She looked up--a deep furrow had crossed his brow, which she had not
seen there before.
"Happy the child," he said, "though shame stands beside his cradle, who
has one heart beating for him in a cruel world. That was not my case. I
never knew my mother."
The mocking fire had died out of Roma's face, and she uncrossed her
knees.
"My mother was the victim of a heartless man and a cruel law. She tied
to her baby's wrist a paper on which she had written its father's name,
placed it in the rota at the Foundling of Santo Spirito, and flung
herself into the Tiber."
Roma drew the cape over her shoulders.
"She lies in an unnamed pauper's grave in the Campo Verano."