Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE POINT OF VIEW 9 I have been me ever since I was born; I have done just what seemed best to me. Do you suppose I am not aware that the way my hair is cut is a shock to most civilized persons, and that you English would strongly disapprove of my watch and my many other things? But I like them myself; it is no trouble for one of my valets to draw a straight line with a pair of scissors; and if I must look at the time I prefer to look at something beautiful. I am entirely uninfluenced by the thoughts or opin- ions of any people; they do not exist for me except in so far as they inter- est me and are instructive or amusing. I never permit myself to be bored for an instant.” “How good that must be!’ Stella ventured to say. Her courage was re- turning. “Civilized human beings turn exist- ence into a prison,’ he went on medi- tatively, “and load themselves with shackles because some convention pre- vents their doing what would give them innocent pleasure. If I had been under the dominion of these things we should not now be enjoying this delightful drive—at least, it is delightful to me— to be thus near you, and alone, out of doors.” Stella did not speak; she was alto- gether too full of emotion to trust her- self to words just yet. They had turned into the Corso by now, and, as ever, it appeared as though it were a holiday, so thronged with pedestrians was the whole thoroughfare. Count Roumoyvski seemed quite unconcerned, but Miss Rawson shrank back into her corner, a new fear in her heart. “Do not be so nervous,” her com- panion said gently. “I always calcu- late the chances before I suggest an- other person’s risking anything for me. They are a million to one that any one could recognize you in that veil and that cloak; believe me, although I am not of your country, I] am at least a gentleman, and would not have per- suaded you to come if there had been any danger of complications for you.” Stella clasped her hands convulsively, and he drew a little nearer her. “Do put all agitating ideas out of your mind,” he said, his blue eyes, with their benign expression, seeking hers and compelling them at last to look at. him. “Do you not understand that it is foolish to spoil what we have by use- less tremors? You are here with me —for the next hour—shall we not try to be happy?” “Yes,” murmured Miss Rawson, and allowed herself to be magnetized into calmness. “When we have passed the Piazza del Popolo and the entrance to the Pin- cio, I will have the car opened; then we can see all the charming young green, and [| will tell you of what these gardens were long ago, and you shall see them with new eyes.” Stella, by some sort of magic, seemed to have recovered all her self-posses- sion as his eyes looked into hers, and she chatted to him naturally, and the next half hour passed like some fairy tale. His deep, quiet voice took her into realms of fancy that her imagina- tion had never dreamed about. His cultivation was immense, and the Rome of the Czsars appeared to be as famil- iar to him as that of nineteen-eleven. The great beauty of the Borghese Gardens was at its height at the end of May; the nightingales throbbed from the bushes, and the air was full of the fresh, exquisite scents of the late spring as the day grew toward evening and all nature seemed full of beauty and peace. It can easily be imagined what this drive meant, then, to a fine, sensitive young woman, whose every instinct of youth and freedom and life had been crushed into undeveloped nothingness by years of gray convention in an old- fashioned English cathedral town. Stella Rawson forgot that she and this Russian were strangers, and she talked to him unrestrainedly, showing glimpses of her inner self that she had not known she possessed. It was cer- tainly heaven, she thought, this drive, and worth all the Aunt Caroline’s frowns. Count Roumovski never said a word of love to her; he treated her with per- fect courtesy and infinite respect; but COMMUC IOoOK (E@)