now how I shivered and started out of the
bitter reverie into which I had fallen at the sound of my wife's low,
laughing voice.

"You must dance, Cesare," she said, with a mischievous smile. "You are
forgetting your duties. You should open the ball with me!"

I rose at once mechanically.

"What dance is it?" I asked, forcing a smile. "I fear you will find me
but a clumsy partner."

She pouted.

"Oh, surely not! You are not going to disgrace me--you really must try
and dance properly just this once. It will look so stupid if you make
any mistake. The band was going to play a quadrille; I would not have
it, and told them to strike up the Hungarian waltz instead. But I
assure you I shall never forgive you if you waltz badly--nothing looks
so awkward and absurd."

I made no answer, but placed my arm round her waist and stood ready to
begin. I avoided looking at her as much as possible, for it was growing
more and more difficult with each moment that passed to hold the
mastery over myself. I was consumed between hate and love. Yes,
love!--of an evil kind, I own, and in which there was no shred of
reverence--filled me with a sort of foolish fury, which mingled itself
with another and manlier craving, namely, to proclaim her vileness then
and there before all her titled and admiring friends, and to leave her
shamed in the dust of scorn, despised and abandoned. Yet I knew well
that were I to speak out--to declare my history and hers before that
brilliant crowd--I should be accounted mad, and that for a woman such
as she there existed no shame.

The swinging measure of the slow Hungarian waltz, that most witching of
dances, danced perfectly only by those of the warm-blooded southern
temperament, now commenced. It was played pianissimo, and stole through
the room like the fluttering breath of a soft sea wind. I had always
been an excellent waltzer, and my step had fitted in with that of Nina
as harmoniously as the two notes of a perfect chord. She found it so on
this occasion, and glanced up with a look of gratified surprise as I
bore her lightly with languorous, dreamlike ease of movement through
the glittering ranks of our guests, who watched us admiringly as we
circled the room two or three times.

Then--all present followed our lead, and in a couple of minutes the
ball-room was like a moving flower-garden in full bloom, rich with
swaying colors and rainbow-like radiance; while the music, growing
stronger, and swell