t in appearance, but very serviceable withal. Ugo sometimes wore
too much jewellery; but his bad taste, if so it could be called, did not
extend to the modest equipage. People accepted the story of the deceased
uncle, and congratulated Ugo, whose pale face assumed on such occasions
a somewhat deprecating smile. "A few scudi," he would answer--"a very
small competence; but what would you have? I need so little--it is enough
for me." Nevertheless people who knew him well warned him that he was
growing stout.

The other man who followed the Duchessa d'Astrardente across the
drawing-room was of a different type. Don Giovanni Saracinesca was
neither very tall nor remarkably handsome, though in the matter of his
beauty opinion varied greatly. He was very dark--almost as dark for a
man as the Duchessa was for a woman. He was strongly built, but very
lean, and his features stood out in bold and sharp relief from the
setting of his short black hair and pointed beard. His nose was perhaps a
little large for his face, and the unusual brilliancy of his eyes gave
him an expression of restless energy; there was something noble in the
shaping of his high square forehead and in the turn of his sinewy throat.
His hands were broad and brown, but nervous and well knit, with straight
long fingers and squarely cut nails. Many women said Don Giovanni was
the handsomest man in Rome; others said he was too dark or too thin, and
that his face was hard and his features ugly. There was a great
difference of opinion in regard to his appearance. Don Giovanni was not
married, but there were few marriageable women in Rome who would not have
been overjoyed to become his wife. But hitherto he had hesitated--or, to
speak more accurately, he had not hesitated at all in his celibacy. His
conduct in refusing to marry had elicited much criticism, little of which
had reached his ears. He cared not much for what his friends said to him,
and not at all for the opinion of the world at large, in consequence of
which state of mind people often said he was selfish--a view taken
extensively by elderly princesses with unmarried daughters, and even by
Don Giovanni's father and only near relation, the old Prince Saracinesca,
who earnestly desired to see his name perpetuated. Indeed Giovanni would
have made a good husband, for he was honest and constant by nature,
courteous by disposition, and considerate by habit and experience. His
reputation for wildness rested rathe