rimonial ties. Next, in more discreet language, she
proceeded to lament another worry which had fallen on the household,
another result of the divorce affair. A rupture had come about between
Donna Serafina and Advocate Morano, who was very displeased with the ill
success of his memoir to the congregation, and accused Father
Lorenza--the confessor of the Boccanera ladies--of having urged them into
a deplorable lawsuit, whose only fruit could be a wretched scandal
affecting everybody. And so great had been Morano's annoyance that he had
not returned to the Boccanera mansion, but had severed a connection of
thirty years' standing, to the stupefaction of all the Roman
drawing-rooms, which altogether disapproved of his conduct. Donna
Serafina was, for her part, the more grieved as she suspected the
advocate of having purposely picked the quarrel in order to secure an
excuse for leaving her; his real motive, in her estimation, being a
sudden, disgraceful passion for a young and intriguing woman of the
middle classes.

That Monday evening, when Pierre entered the drawing-room, hung with
yellow brocatelle of a flowery Louis XIV pattern, he at once realised
that melancholy reigned in the dim light radiating from the lace-veiled
lamps. Benedetta and Celia, seated on a sofa, were chatting with Dario,
whilst Cardinal Sarno, ensconced in an arm-chair, listened to the
ceaseless chatter of the old relative who conducted the little Princess
to each Monday gathering. And the only other person present was Donna
Serafina, seated all alone in her wonted place on the right-hand side of
the chimney-piece, and consumed with secret rage at seeing the chair on
the left-hand side unoccupied--that chair which Morano had always taken
during the thirty years that he had been faithful to her. Pierre noticed
with what anxious and then despairing eyes she observed his entrance, her
glance ever straying towards the door, as though she even yet hoped for
the fickle one's return. Withal her bearing was erect and proud; she
seemed to be more tightly laced than ever; and there was all the wonted
haughtiness on her hard-featured face, with its jet-black eyebrows and
snowy hair.

Pierre had no sooner paid his respects to her than he allowed his own
worry to appear by inquiring whether they would not have the pleasure of
seeing Monsignor Nani that evening. Thereupon Donna Serafina could not
refrain from answering: "Oh! Monsignor Nani is forsaking us like th