ra, installed
on a little platform at the far end of the gallery, had just finished the
waltz, and the dancers, with an air of giddy rapture, were slowly walking
through the crowd when a fresh arrival caused every head to turn. Donna
Serafina, arrayed in a robe of purple silk as if she had worn the colours
of her brother the Cardinal, was making a royal entry on the arm of
Consistorial-Advocate Morano. And never before had she laced herself so
tightly, never had her waist looked so slim and girlish; and never had
her stern, wrinkled face, which her white hair scarcely softened,
expressed such stubborn and victorious domination. A discreet murmur of
approval ran round, a murmur of public relief as it were, for all Roman
society had condemned the unworthy conduct of Morano in severing a
connection of thirty years to which the drawing-rooms had grown as
accustomed as if it had been a legal marriage. The rupture had lasted for
two months, to the great scandal of Rome where the cult of long and
faithful affections still abides. And so the reconciliation touched every
heart and was regarded as one of the happiest consequences of the victory
which the Boccaneras had that day gained in the affair of Benedetta's
marriage. Morano repentant and Donna Serafina reappearing on his arm,
nothing could have been more satisfactory; love had conquered, decorum
was preserved and good order re-established.

But there was a deeper sensation as soon as Benedetta and Dario were seen
to enter, side by side, behind the others. This tranquil indifference for
the ordinary forms of propriety, on the very day when the marriage with
Prada had been annulled, this victory of love, confessed and celebrated
before one and all, seemed so charming in its audacity, so full of the
bravery of youth and hope, that the pair were at once forgiven amidst a
murmur of universal admiration. And as in the case of Celia and Attilio,
all hearts flew to them, to their radiant beauty, to the wondrous
happiness that made their faces so resplendent. Dario, still pale after
his long convalescence, somewhat slight and delicate of build, with the
fine clear eyes of a big child, and the dark curly beard of a young god,
bore himself with a light pride, in which all the old princely blood of
the Boccaneras could be traced. And Benedetta, she so white under her
casque of jetty hair, she so calm and so sensible, wore her lovely smile,
that smile so seldom seen on her face but which