nodding to a tall man. "How pale and grave he is poor man! His hobby
has not trotted to his mind to-day, I fancy."

Andrea's prepossession for Marianna was crossed by the captivating charm
which Gambara could not fail to exert over every genuine artist. The
composer was now forty; but although his high brow was bald and lined
with a few parallel, but not deep, wrinkles; in spite, too, of hollow
temples where the blue veins showed through the smooth, transparent
skin, and of the deep sockets in which his black eyes were sunk, with
their large lids and light lashes, the lower part of his face made him
still look young, so calm was its outline, so soft the modeling. It
could be seen at a glance that in this man passion had been curbed to
the advantage of the intellect; that the brain alone had grown old in
some great struggle.

Andrea shot a swift look at Marianna, who was watching him. And he noted
the beautiful Italian head, the exquisite proportion and rich coloring
that revealed one of those organizations in which every human power is
harmoniously balanced, he sounded the gulf that divided this couple,
brought together by fate. Well content with the promise he inferred from
this dissimilarity between the husband and wife, he made no attempt to
control a liking which ought to have raised a barrier between the fair
Marianna and himself. He was already conscious of feeling a sort of
respectful pity for this man, whose only joy she was, as he understood
the dignified and serene acceptance of ill fortune that was expressed in
Gambara's mild and melancholy gaze.

After expecting to see one of the grotesque figures so often set before
us by German novelists and writers of _libretti_, he beheld a simple,
unpretentious man, whose manners and demeanor were in nothing strange
and did not lack dignity. Without the faintest trace of luxury, his
dress was more decent than might have been expected from his extreme
poverty, and his linen bore witness to the tender care which watched
over every detail of his existence. Andrea looked at Marianna with
moistened eyes; and she did not color, but half smiled, in a way that
betrayed, perhaps, some pride at this speechless homage. The Count, too
thoroughly fascinated to miss the smallest indication of complaisance,
fancied that she must love him, since she understood him so well.

From this moment he set himself to conquer the husband rather than the
wife, turning all his batteries against