d among the ferns and flowers.
The moon, shining frostily white through the one uncurtained window,
cast a long pale green ray, like the extended arm of an appealing
ghost, against one side of the velvet hangings--a spectral effect which
was heightened by the contrast of the garish glitter of the waxen
tapers. Each man looked at the other with a sort of uncomfortable
embarrassment, and somehow, though I moved my lips in an endeavor to
speak and thus break the spell, I was at a loss, and could find no
language suitable to the moment. Ferrari toyed with his wine-glass
mechanically--the duke appeared absorbed in arranging the crumbs beside
his plate into little methodical patterns; the stillness seemed to last
so long that it was like a suffocating heaviness in the air. Suddenly
Vincenzo, in his office of chief butler, drew the cork of a
champagne-bottle with a loud-sounding pop! We all started as though a
pistol had been fired in our ears, and the Marchese Gualdro burst out
laughing.

"Corpo di Baceo!" he cried. "At last you have awakened from sleep! Were
you all struck dumb, amici, that you stared at the table-cloth so
persistently and with such admirable gravity? May Saint Anthony and his
pig preserve me, but for the time I fancied I was attending a banquet
on the wrong side of the Styx, and that you, my present companions,
were all dead men!"

"And that idea made YOU also hold your tongue, which is quite an
unaccountable miracle in its way," laughed Luziano Salustri. "Have you
never heard the pretty legend that attaches to such an occurrence as a
sudden silence in the midst of high festivity? An angel enters,
bestowing his benediction as he passes through."

"That story is more ancient than the church," said Chevalier Mancini.
"It is an exploded theory--for we have ceased to believe in angels--we
call them women instead."

"Bravo, mon vieux gaillard!" cried Captain de Hamal. "Your sentiments
are the same as mine, with a very trifling difference. You believe
women to be angels--I know them to be devils--mas il n'y agu'un pas
entre es deux? We will not quarrel over a word--a votre sante, mon
cher!"

And he drained his glass, nodding to Mancini, who followed his example.

"Perhaps," said the smooth, slow voice of Captain Freccia, "our silence
was caused by the instinctive consciousness of something wrong with our
party--a little inequality--which I dare say our noble host has not
thought it worth while to mention.