interest of the people in the hotel was the
growing intimacy established between the Marchesa Sciacca, who was the
lady from Malta, and the Neapolitan with the Pulcinella air, Signor
Carminatti.

The Maltese must have been haughty and exclusive, to judge from the
queenly air she assumed. Only with the handsome Neapolitan did she
behave amiably.

In the dining-room the Maltese sat with her two children, a boy and a
girl, at the other end from where Caesar and Laura were accustomed
to sit. At her side, at a table close by, chattered and jested the
diplomatic Carminatti.

The Marquis of Sciacca was ill with diabetes; he had come to Rome
to take a treatment, and during these days he did not come to the
dining-room.

The Marchesa was one of those mixed types, unharmonious, common among
mongrel races. Her black hair shone like jet, her lips looked like an
Egyptian's, and her eyes of a very light blue showed off in a curious
way in her bronzed face. She powdered her face, she painted her lips,
she shaded her eyes with kohl. Her appearance was that of a proud,
revengeful woman.

She ate with much nicety, opening her mouth so little that she could put
no more than the tip of her spoon between her lips; with her children
she talked English and Italian in equal perfection, and when she heard
young Carminatti's facetious remarks she laughed with marked impudence.
Signer Carminatti was tall, with a black moustache, a hooked nose,
well-formed languid eyes, lively and somewhat clownish gestures; he was
at the same time sad and merry, melancholy and smiling, he changed his
expression every moment. He was in the habit of appearing in the salon
in a dinner-jacket, with a large flower in his button-hole and two or
three fat diamonds on his chest. He would come along dragging his feet,
would bow, make a joke, stand mournful; and this fluency of expression,
and these gesticulations, gave him a manner halfway between woman and
child.

When he grew petulant, especially, he seemed like a woman. "Macche!"
he would say continually, with an acrid voice and the disgusted air of
an hysterical dame.

In spite of his frequent petulant fits, he was the person most esteemed
by the ladies of the hotel, both young and married.

"He is the darling of the ladies," the Countess Brenda said of him,
mockingly.

Laura had not the least use for him.

"I know that type by heart," she asserted with disdain.

During lunch and dinner Signor Carmina