. At all times, indeed, and in all countries, an aristocracy
has been capable of this sheer delight in its own splendor, wealth, good
looks, and accumulated treasure; whether in the Venice that Petrarch
visited; or in the Rome of the Renaissance popes; in the Versailles of
the Grand Monarque; or in the Florence of to-day, which still at moments
of <i>festa</i> reproduces in its midst all the costumes of the Cinque-cento.

In this English case there was less dignity than there would have been
in a Latin country, and more personal beauty; less grace, perhaps, and
yet a something richer and more romantic.

At the top of the stairs stood a marquis in a dress of the Italian
Renaissance, a Gonzaga who had sat for Titian; beside him a fair-haired
wife in the white satin and pearls of Henrietta Maria; while up the
marble stairs, watched by a laughing multitude above, streamed
Gainsborough girls and Reynolds women, women from the courts of
Elizabeth, or Henri Quatre, of Maria Theresa, or Marie Antoinette, the
figures of Holbein and Vandyck, Florentines of the Renaissance, the
youths of Carpaccio, the beauties of Titian and Veronese.

"Kitty, make haste!" cried a voice in front, as Kitty began to mount the
stairs. "Your quadrille is just called."

Kitty smiled and nodded, but did not hurry her pace by a second. The
staircase was not so full as it had been, and she knew well as she
mounted it, her slender figure drawn to its full height, her eyes
flashing greeting and challenge to those in the gallery, the diamond
genius on her spear glittering above her, that she held the stage, and
that the play would not begin without her.

And indeed her dress, her brilliance, and her beauty let loose a hum of
conversation--not always friendly.

"What is she?" "Oh, something mythological! She's in the next
quadrille." "My dear, she's Diana! Look at her bow and quiver, and the
moon in her hair." "Very incorrect!--she ought to have the towered
crown!" "Absurd, such a little thing to attempt Diana! I'd back Actaeon!"

The latter remark was spoken in the ear of Louis Harman, who stood in
the gallery looking down. But Harman shook his head.

"You don't understand. She's not Greek, of course; but she's fairyland.
A child of the Renaissance, dreaming in a wood, would have seen Artemis
so--dressed up and glittering, and fantastic--as the Florentines saw
Venus. Small, too, like the fairies!--slipping through the leaves; small
hounds, with jewel