Page:Her Roman Lover (Frothingham, 1911).djvu/46

 not have happened. Here is Gino Curatulo. He came in five minutes ago and has been pretending to talk to Madame Lilienkron while he looked at you. Do you know him? Yes? Good! But be a little careful. He is always about some woman or other, and sometimes the woman—Do you know his romance?”

“Has he one?” asked Anne, forgetting her amazement at Lady Fitz-Smith’s frankness in her interest concerning Curatulo.

“He fell madly in love with Maria Pavlowa soon after his return to Rome, and the poor thing was wild about him, as every one could see. Her husband was a brute, and we all sympathized with them—with the Pavlowa and Curatulo, I mean. She was radiantly lovely when he was in the same room with her; when he left it she was dull, like a place from which the light has been taken. Often she looked frightened, and it was thought her husband maltreated her. Some of Curatulo’s friends tried to get him off to Africa again, for they feared that he would kill the man or be killed by him. He was mad enough and young enough to do anything, and would certainly have run off with her if her father had not come down from Russia and carried her back with him. Curatulo disappeared for some time, and it was thought that he tried to follow her,