Perhaps that story, scraped to bedrock, shorn of all floral features, may gain in force what it loses in artistry.

She was twenty-two when she came to Rome—­twenty-two and art-mad.  She had been pretty, with that pink-cheesecloth prettiness of the provincial English girl, who degenerates into blowsiness at thirty.  Since seventeen she had saved and scrimped and contrived for this modest Roman holiday.  She had given painting lessons—­even painted on loathsome china—­that the little hoard might grow.  And when at last there was enough she had come to this Rome against the protests of the fussy English father and the spinster English sister.

The man she met quite casually one morning in the Sistine Chapel—­perhaps he bumped her elbow as they stood staring up at the glorious ceiling.  A thousand pardons!  Ah, an artist too?  In five minutes they were chattering like mad—­she in bad French and exquisite English; he in bad English and exquisite French.  He knew Rome—­its pictures, its glories, its history—­as only an Italian can.  And he taught her art, and he taught her Italian, and he taught her love.

And so they were married, or ostensibly married, though Mary did not know the truth until three months later when he left her quite as casually as he had met her, taking with him the little hoard, and Mary’s English trinkets, and Mary’s English roses, and Mary’s broken pride.

So!  There was no going back to the fussy father or the spinster sister.  She came very near resting her head on Father Tiber’s breast in those days.  She would sit in the great galleries for hours, staring at the wonder-works.  Then, one day, again in the Sistine Chapel, a fussy little American woman had approached her, her eyes snapping.  Mary was sketching, or trying to.

“Do you speak English?”

“I am English,” said Mary.

The feathers in the hat of the fussy little woman quivered.

“Then tell me, is this ceiling by Raphael?”

“Ceiling!” gasped Mary Gowd.  “Raphael!”

Then, very gently, she gave the master’s name.

“Of course!” snapped the excited little American.  “I’m one of a party of eight.  We’re all school-teachers And this guide”—­she waved a hand in the direction of a rapt little group standing in the agonising position the ceiling demands—­“just informed us that the ceiling is by Raphael.  And we’re paying him ten lire!”

“Won’t you sit here?” Mary Gowd made a place for her.  “I’ll tell you.”

And she did tell her, finding a certain relief from her pain in unfolding to this commonplace little woman the glory of the masterpiece among masterpieces.

“Why—­why,” gasped her listener, who had long since beckoned the other seven with frantic finger, “how beautifully you explain it!  How much you know!  Oh, why can’t they talk as you do?” she wailed, her eyes full of contempt for the despised guide.

“I am happy to have helped you,” said Mary Gowd.