Chapter XIX
In the Bosca Sacra
The little snowstorm that had signaled Jack Swift’s arrival in Rome was the winter’s last serious effort at survival. In mid-February fruit trees blossomed on the Campagna in warm moist air, and very soon there were violets growing within the tomb of Cecilia Matella and in the quiet cypress-guarded fields among the ruins that had once been the halls of Hadrian’s Villa. Birds with strange rapturous notes sang in the Roman gardens. The chill fled away from under the ilex trees, and Anne, walking with Gino in the Giardini Borghese, remembered how she had walked there alone during the last warm days of autumn, thinking that this garden was made for men and women who love each other, and wondering wistfully, half ashamed of her wistfulness and wonder, why, in such a time and place, she also did not love.
A letter from Mr. Warren to his daughter soon confirmed the cable sent to Jack. The engagement could be announced immediately, but in the early spring Anne must return to her own country and197
