The
Cavaliere was a mine of information upon all Roman places and people;
he told Rowland a number of curious anecdotes about the old Villa
Mondragone. "If history could always be taught in this fashion!" thought
Rowland. "It 's the ideal--strolling up and down on the very spot
commemorated, hearing sympathetic anecdotes from deeply indigenous
lips." At last, as they passed, Rowland observed the mournful
physiognomy of Prince Casamassima, and, glancing toward the other end of
the terrace, saw that Roderick and Christina had disappeared from view.
The young man was sitting upright, in an attitude, apparently habitual,
of ceremonious rigidity; but his lower jaw had fallen and was propped
up with his cane, and his dull dark eye was fixed upon the angle of the
villa which had just eclipsed Miss Light and her companion. His features
were grotesque and his expression vacuous; but there was a lurking
delicacy in his face which seemed to tell you that nature had been
making Casamassimas for a great many centuries, and, though she adapted
her mould to circumstances, had learned to mix her material to an
extraordinary fineness and to perform the whole operation with extreme
smoothness.
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