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In that deserted quarter fiacres are rare, and there was some delay in Assunta's procuring one. Christina talked of the church, of the picturesque old court, of that strange, decaying corner of Rome. Rowland was perplexed; he was ill at ease. At last the fiacre arrived, but she waited a moment longer. "So, decidedly," she suddenly asked, "I can only harm him?"
But where was the studio? The kiosques were now open, the morning papers were selling briskly, the roadway was full of fiacres plying for hire, or were drawn up in lines three deep, the red waistcoated coachmen slept on their box-seats. But where was the studio? Suddenly they turned into an Arcade. The shops on either side were filled with jet ornaments, fancy glass, bon-bons, boxes, and fans.
Fiacres alternated with the fine carriages of the swells; the first, clumsy, with enormous bodies crushing the springs, drawn by a broken down hack with hanging head and broken knees; the second, slightly built on light wheels, with horses slender and straight, their heads well up, their bits snowy with foam, while the coachman, solemn in his livery, his head erect in his high collar, waited bolt upright, his whip resting on his knee.
Yonder, gloomy and grim, stands the College of Saint Louis. Dark alleys open off here and there from the main thoroughfare, and narrow side streets, steep as flights of steps. Low sheds and open stalls cling, limpet-like, to every available nook and corner. An endless procession of trucks, wagons, water-carts, and fiacres rumbles perpetually by.
We stood him before the bronze gates of Ghiberti, and walked him up and down between rows of works in pietra dura, but without any permanent effect, and when he contemplated the consecrated residences of Cimabue and Cellini, we could see that his interest was perfunctory, and that out of the corner of his eye he really considered passing fiacres.
Omnibuses and motors, unwieldy meat carts and fiacres, inextricably jammed, met them at every turn, until at last swinging round by the corner of the Louvre the streets became clearer and the car turned sharply to cross the river. As they approached the address the detective had given him Craven was conscious of no sensation of any kind. A deadly calm seemed to have taken possession of him.
What! they take the precaution to carry me alone in the van, prepare a nice little obstruction, and imagine I am going to take to my heels and rejoin my friends. Well, and what about the twenty agents of the Surete who accompanied us on foot, in fiacres and on bicycles? No, the arrangement did not please me. I should not have got away alive. Tell me, monsieur, did they count on that?"
And then the returning in open carriages rolling through the white dust beneath the immense heavy dome of the summer night, when the dusky darkness of the street is chequered by a passing glimpse of light skirt or flying feather, and the moon looms like a magic lantern out of the sky. Now we seemed to live in fiacres and restaurants, and the afternoons were filled with febrile impressions.
"Yes; but she was a terror, you know. Shall we follow the rest?" They all trooped out of the café, and fiacres were called to take them to the house where the mask was held. The women were placed in their respective carriages, but the men walked. At the door of the house, as they entered the ballroom, they reunited, but again were soon scattered.
When they had settled down into the soft, leather cushions of the victoria she sighed luxuriously and said: "This is nice! I wish " and broke off short. "What?" asked Fitz. "Oh," she said, "that the horses would start, and take us all over Paris and back, and everybody would see us go by, and envy us. But mamma and I," she said, "are devoted to fiacres not smart, are they?"
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