ina's household; for it is the
instinct of all ex-sovereigns to meddle in politics, and it was not
possible to predict what such a woman might do if she were bored.

Ortensia was a mere girl still, but her eyes had been opened of late,
and she did not fail to notice the impression she had made on the young
man; she was far too much in love with her husband, however, to care for
such admiration, or even to be pleased by it, and somehow the present
case seemed to be of bad omen.

The Queen and her party had already been long in the church, for they
had begun their round on the other side of the entrance, and were just
ending it when Stradella and his wife appeared; now, therefore, after a
few more words, they took themselves off amidst much bowing and scraping
on the part of all except the Queen herself. She smiled to Ortensia, and
nodded familiarly to Stradella, making a beckoning and inviting gesture
to him over her shoulder with her right hand as she turned away.
Alberto looked quickly at the musician, not so much taking him for a
possible rival as for a convenient successor; but the faintly
contemptuous smile that flickered in the musician's face as he saw the
careless signal assuredly did not mean that he was either flattered or
attracted. Ortensia saw the gesture too, and resented it; but a moment
later she smiled to herself at the thought that such a woman as the
Queen could ever win so much as a second thought from Alessandro.

The two had seen enough of San Stefano, and were glad to escape from the
nightmare of horrors depicted on its walls; but before going out they
waited a few minutes in the vestibule to allow the party time to get out
of sight.

'So that is the famous Queen Christina!' Ortensia said, expressing her
surprise and disappointment as soon as they were alone. 'Pina looks more
like a lady!'

CHAPTER XIV

After supper on the next evening Stradella and Ortensia were sitting for
the last time in the beautiful loggia, in the soft light of the young
moon that would soon set behind the Vatican Hill. The air was
wonderfully dry and warm, as it is in Rome sometimes in June when there
has been no rain for three or four weeks.

On the following morning they were to move to the Palazzo Altieri, where
Don Alberto had caused to be prepared for them the apartment that is
entered by a small door on the left, halfway up the grand staircase.
They had been talking of the change.

'It will seem more