long drawn
out, Musellaro said to Andrea--

'If we don't take care, we shall be late.'

Andrea accordingly took leave of Albonico, promising to hear the rest of
the funeral oration very shortly, and went away with Musellaro.

The meeting with Albonico had re-awakened the singular emotion--partly
regret, partly a certain peculiar satisfaction--which he had experienced
for several days after hearing the news of this death. The image of
Donna Ippolita, half obliterated by his illness and convalescence, by
his love for Maria Ferres, by a variety of incidents, had reappeared to
him then as in the dim distance, but invested with a nameless ideality.
He had received a promise from her which, though it was never fulfilled,
had procured to him the greatest happiness that can befall a man: the
victory over a rival, a brilliant victory in the presence of the woman
he desired. Later on, between desire and regret another sentiment grew
up--the poetic sentiment for beauty idealised by death. It pleased him
that the adventure should end thus for ever. This woman who had never
been his, but to gain whom he had nearly lost his life, now rose up
noble and unsullied before his imagination in all the sublime ideality
of death. _Tibi, Hippolyta, semper!_

'But where are we going to?' asked Musellaro, stopping short in the
middle of the Piazza de Venezia.

At the bottom of all Andrea's perturbation and all his varying thoughts,
was the excitement called up in him by his meeting with Don Manuel
Ferres and the consequent thought of Donna Maria; and now, in the midst
of these conflicting emotions, a sort of nervous longing drew him to her
house.

'I am going home,' he answered; 'we can go through the Via Nazionale.
Come along with me.'

He paid no heed to what his friend was saying. The thought of Maria
Ferres occupied him exclusively. Arrived in front of the theatre, he
hesitated a moment, undecided which side of the street he had better
take. He would find out the direction of the house by seeing which way
the numbers ran.

'What is the matter?' asked Musellaro.

'Nothing--go on,--I am listening.'

He looked at one number and calculated that the house must be on the
left hand side, somewhere about the Villa Aldobrandini. The tall pines
round the villa looked feathery light against the starry sky. The night
was icy but serene; the Torre delle Milizie lifted up its massive bulk,
square and sombre among the twinkling stars; the lau