of rivalry between them. For a while they sit without speaking. In fact, they have met by coincidence as they are staying at different hotels, having been unaware of the other's plans to visit Rome. This situation is ironic because so many years ago neither was aware of the other's schemes then, either. For, Grace Ansley had no idea that the note to meet Delphin at the Coliseum was forged by Alida, nor did Alida know that Grace replied to Delphin and he actually met her that night. In fact, she conceived her daughter Barbara that Roman evening, and was later confined at home not because she was sick, as people had thought.

These revelations between the two rivals who were once thought of by others as friends, change the scope of their relationship forever. While their return to Rome has given no one an ailment because of the cool evening air, there has certainly been a fever of emotional honesty. 

The letter is at the heart of the deception that Mrs. Slade believed she perpetrated on Mrs. Ansley many years earlier when they were both in love with Delphin Slade.

One of these women married Delphin Slade, and one had a brief affair with him.  One night when they were all in Rome, Mrs. Slade, Alida, knowing that Grace, Mrs. Ansley, was in love with her fiance decided to write Grace a letter, pretending to be Delphin arranging a meeting at the Colosseum. 

What Mrs. Slade, Alida,  didn't know was that when Grace got the letter she thought was from Delphin, she answered it and sent her reply to him.

He received the reply, they subsequently met at the Colosseum and had a brief affair.  Mrs. Slade thought that she was going to discourage Mrs. Ansley from loving Delphin by arranging a phony meeting, where Grace would go to the Colosseum and wait and wait, with Delphin not showing up which would make Grace mad at him, and end her pursuit of him.

But Grace and Delphin actually met at the Colosseum, something that Mrs. Slade never knew until now, and Mrs. Ansley got pregnant with her daughter, Barbara, who Mrs. Slade discovers is the child of her late husband. 

 So the letter actually led to an affair which resulted in the birth of a child.  Mrs. Slade thought she had discouraged Grace from loving Delphin Slade, when all she did was push her into his arms, at least briefly.    

"Roman Fever," by Edith Wharton is a story about two close Victorian friends who do not know each other.  These women revisit Rome years after their first youthful visit; this time they have their daughters with them, and the jealous comparisons are made between the women.  Mrs. Slade asks Mrs. Ansley how "two such exemplary characters as you and Horace had managed to produce anything quite so dynamic," and says of her own daughter, "I always wanted a brilliant daughter...and never quite understood why I got an angel instead."

For the older women, now widowed, Rome "brings back the past a little too acutely."  In truth, there was a secret resentment on the part of Mrs. Slade, for she learned that Mrs. Ansley had gone "to meet the man [she] was engaged to" because she had written the letter that took her to the rendez-vous.  In a twist of fate, however, Mrs. Ansley had answered the letter, and this action is what brought Delphin Slade to her.  They did, in fact, meet and went into the Coloseum.  As Mrs. Slade had hoped then, Mrs. Ansley became very ill with the "Roman Fever."  But, Mrs. Slade tells Mrs. Ansley, she regrets that her friend became so sick.

Mrs. Ansley is upset by the revelation because she has cherished the letter all these years as the only letter of Delphin's that she had.  While Mrs. Slade feels some regret, she defends her actions by observing that Mrs. Ansley could not have been too in love with Delphin because she quickly married after she became well.  In a moment of truth, Mrs. Ansley apologizes for taking Delphin that night.  But, Mrs. Slade mitigates this apology by declaring that she was married to Mr. Slade for twenty-five years while Mrs. Ansley "had nothing but that one letter tha he didn't write."

Mrs. Ansley was agai silent.  She took a step, and turned back, facing her companion.

'I had Barbara,' she said, and began to move ahead of Mrs. Slade toward the stairway.

A significant title, "Roman Fever" denotes a illnes that one could incur if in the Roman night air when the two women were young; it also connotes romantic passion; and, in the second visit of the "old friends,' it connotes the ill feelings that arise between the Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley as they finally discuss the incidents from their youth.

The title can be interpreted in both a literal and a metaphorical sense. In literal terms, it refers to a potentially fatal disease which regularly afflicts the denizens of Rome at certain times of the year. By coaxing Grace out into the street under false pretenses, the wicked Alida was hoping she'd succumb to this deadly fever, thus getting her out of the picture and leaving the way clear for Alida to pursue Delphin, the man both women wanted.

In a metaphorical sense, Roman fever refers to the affect that Rome at this time of year seems to have on its many visitors. It's rather telling in this regard that Grace should feel free at this precise moment to divulge the scandalous secret she's been harboring all these years. Figuratively speaking, she's been struck down by a fever, making her act differently to how she normally would.

When people get sick, we often say they're not quite themselves. And it's the same in relation to Grace. What she confesses to Alida about what happened between herself and Delphin in Rome all those years ago reveals a completely different side to this normally meek, placid lady. In conducting a brief, illicit liaison with Delphin, Grace wasn't herself; it was as if she were overcome with a fever, the fever of intense passion and desire.

It refers to several things.  First, it refers to the passion felt by Grace Ansley and Delphin Slade.  Delphin and Alida were dating, but he has a bit of a crush on Grace.  Alida senses this, and one night, when they are all in Rome (their families are well-to-do and travel in packs, it seems), Alida sends Grace a note signed by Delphin arranging a meeting.  Unknown to Alida, Grace answers the note, and the two really meet.  That night, Grace's daughter, Barbara is conceived.

Second, it refers to the actual fever contracted in Rome.  This is the reason Alida sends Grace the note.  She is secretly hoping that Grace will go to meet Delphin and contract the fever which caused many to die.  Grace did get sick, but she also got pregnant.  She recovered from the fever, and married her husband who reared the child as if she were his own.

Third, it refers to the fact that Alida is jealous of Barbara. She isn't sure why, but she wishes her own daughter, Jenny were more like Barbara.  Jenny does not match up to Barbara's beauty, charm, and lively personality. When the two women are in Rome once again, talking on a veranda and looking over the Roman ruins,  Grace smacks Alida with a Roman fever of her own--Barbara is Delphin's child. The secret is finally out after twenty plus years and the deaths of both their husbands.  The joke is on Alida Slade.

This short story presents us with two middle-aged "friends" who finally reveal to each other secrets that they have kept from each other for a long time. These secrets revolve around the "Roman Fever" of the title, that refers back to the Roman fever that "stalked the streets." However, Mrs. Slade reminds Mrs. Ansley of a story about an aunt of hers, who delibeately sent her sister out to the Forum at night to supposedly gather a night-blooming flower, but actually she wanted her sister to catch a chill and die because of the cold. However, as we discover, Mrs. Slade tried a similar tactic to rid herself of Mrs. Ansley when she was engaged to Mr. Slade by writing a false note telling her that Mr. Slade would meet her in the Colosseum. Thus, when we think about the emotion of the words of the title, we are really thinking about the way in which Mrs. Slade, in her anger and jealousy and her desire to "keep" her husband, tried to dispose of her competition, her childhood friend, Mrs. Ansley.