see her at least by going to
Benediction at her Convent church the very next day.

It happened, however, that this was the time when the Artists' Club of
Rome were giving a Veglione (a kind of fancy-dress ball), and as Alma
and my husband desired to go to it, and were still in the way of using
me to keep themselves in countenance, I consented to accompany them on
condition that I did not dress or dance, and that they would go with me
to Benediction the following day.

"Dear sweet girl!" said Alma. "We'll do whatever you like. Of course we
will."

I wore my soft satin without any ornaments, and my husband merely put
scarlet facings on the lapels of his evening coat, but Alma was clad in
a gorgeous dress of old gold, with Oriental skirts which showed her
limbs in front but had a long train behind, and made her look like a
great vampire bat.

It was eleven o'clock before we reached the theatre, but already the
auditorium was full, and so well had the artists done their work of
decoration, making the air alive with floating specks of many-coloured
lights, like the fire-flies at Nemi, that the scene was one of
enchantment.

It was difficult to believe that on the other side of the walls was the
street, with the clanging electric bells and people hurrying by with
their collars up, for the night was cold, and it had begun to rain as we
came in, and one poor woman, with a child under her shawl, was standing
by the entrance trying to sell evening papers.

I sat alone in a box on the ground tier while Alma and my husband and
their friends were below on the level of the _poltroni_ (the stalls)
that had been arranged for the dancing, which began immediately after we
arrived and went on without a break until long after midnight.

Then there was supper on the stage, and those who did not eat drank a
good deal until nearly everybody seemed to be under the influence of
alcohol. As a consequence many of the people, especially some of the
women (not good women I fear), seemed to lose all control of themselves,
singing snatches of noisy songs, sipping out of the men's glasses,
taking the smoke of cigarettes out of the men's mouths, sitting on the
men's knees, and even riding astride on the men's arms and shoulders.

I bore these sights as long as I could, making many fruitless appeals to
my husband to take me home; and I was just about to leave of myself,
being sick of the degradation of my sex, when a kind of rostrum, with an
e