Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/291

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went very often to the Coliseum; he had established with this monument and with its exuberance of ruin, in those days all untrimmed, a relation of the tenderest intimacy. One morning, about a month after his return from Frascati, as he was strolling across the vast arena, he observed a young woman seated on one of the fragments of stone which are arranged along the line of the ancient parapet. It seemed to him that he had seen her before, but he was unable to give her a frame. Passing her again he perceived that one of the little red-legged French soldiers who were at that time on guard there had made her the object of an irresistible military advance. She smiled upon him with a radiance, and Rowland recognised the address (it had ever pleased him) of a certain comely Assunta who sometimes opened the door for Mrs. Light's visitors. He wondered what she was doing alone in the Coliseum, and put it together that she had admirers as well as her young mistress, but that, being without the same domiciliary conveniences, she was using this massive heritage of her Latin ancestors as hall of audience. In other words she had an appointment with her lover, who would do well from present appearances not to delay. It was a long time since Rowland had mounted to the upper tiers of the great circus, and, as the day was splendid and the 257