, too, expressed her. But, at that
rate, it expressed her in an aspect which Peter had instinctively made
it his habit to forget, which he by no means found it inspiriting
to remember. It expressed, it emphasised, her wealth, her rank; it
emphasised the distance, in a worldly sense, between her and himself,
the conventional barriers.

And she...

She was very lovely, she was entirely cordial, friendly, she was all
that she had ever been--and yet--and yet--Well, somehow, she seemed
indefinably different. Somehow, again, the distance, the barriers, were
emphasised. She was very lovely, she was entirely cordial, friendly, she
was all that she had ever been; but, somehow, to-night, she seemed very
much the great lady, very much the duchess....

"My dear man," he said to himself, "you were mad to dream for a single
instant that there was the remotest possibility of anything ever
happening."

The only other guests, besides the Cardinal and Monsignor Langshawe,
were an old Frenchwoman, with beautiful white hair, from one of the
neighbouring villas, Madame de Lafere, and a young, pretty, witty, and
voluble Irishwoman, Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, from an hotel at Spiaggia.
In deference, perhaps, to the cloth of the two ecclesiastics, none of
the women were in full evening-dress, and there was no arm-taking when
they went in to dinner. The dinner itself was of a simplicity which
Peter thought admirable, and which, of course, he attributed to his
Duchessa's own good taste. He was not yet familiar enough with the Black
aristocracy of Italy, to be aware that in the matter of food and drink
simplicity is as much the criterion of good form amongst them, as lavish
complexity is the criterion of good form amongst the English-imitating
Whites.

The conversation, I believe, took its direction chiefly from the
initiative of Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. With great sprightliness and
humour, and with an astonishing light-hearted courage, she rallied the
Cardinal upon the neglect in which her native island was allowed to
languish by the powers at Rome. "The most Catholic country in three
hemispheres, to be sure," she said; "every inch of its soil soaked
with the blood of martyrs. Yet you've not added an Irish saint to the
Calendar for I see you're blushing to think how many ages; and you've
taken sides with the heretic Saxon against us in our struggle for Home
Rule--which I blame you for, though, being a landowner and a bit of an
absentee, I '