CHAPTER IV

Léon planned in advance the setting for his proposal. He would make it in the English way, to the girl herself. Léon had never proposed marriage before, and he gave the affair his best attention.

The Baths of Caracalla are never very crowded and at certain times of the day they are extraordinarily solitary.

Léon knew one of the chief excavators and it was part of his idea to take the entire family of Pinsent with the exception of Rose into the underground regions. The excavator, who was an enthusiast, could be calculated to hold them there for a full hour. Rose, who never liked underground temples, agreed easily enough to remain in the open air, and Léon disappeared with the others. She was a little puzzled over Baedeker’s description of the Baths of Caracalla, once she got the tepidarium in her head she felt she could get on quite easily, but the tepidarium eluded her. The great roofless, sunny space, wouldn’t contract itself reasonably, into a guide book, and then she heard Léon’s returning footsteps.

“Has anything happened?” she asked in some alarm.

“That is for you to say,” answered Léon with unusual gravity. “For my