oment on the pavement of the Via Sistina. Her beauty at
this moment was of ideal nobility, and shone with additional splendour
among all these women heated with the dance, over-excited and restless
in their manner. The men looked at her and grew thoughtful; no mind was
so obtuse or empty that she did not exercise a disturbing influence upon
it, inspire some vague and indefinable hope. He whose heart was free
imagined with a thrill what such a woman's love would be; he who loved
already conceived a vague regret, and dreamed of raptures hitherto
unknown; he who bore a wound dealt by some woman's jealousy or
faithlessness suddenly felt that he might easily recover.

Thus she advanced amid the homage of the men, enveloped by their gaze.
Arrived at the end of the gallery, she joined a group of ladies who were
talking and fanning themselves excitedly under the fresco of Perseus
turning Phineus to stone. They were the Princess di Ferentino, Hortensa
Massa d'Alba, the Marchesa Daddi-Tosinghi and Bianca Dolcebuono.

'Why so late?' asked the latter.

'I hesitated very much whether to come at all--I don't feel well.'

'Yes, you look very pale.'

'I believe I am going to have neuralgia badly again, like last year.'

'Heaven forefend!'

'Elena, do look at Madame de la Boissiere,' exclaimed Giovanella Daddi
in her queer husky voice; 'doesn't she look like a camel with a yellow
wig!'

'Mademoiselle Vanloo is losing her head over your cousin,' said Hortensa
Massa d'Alba to the Princess as Sophie Vanloo passed on Ludovico
Barbarisi's arm. 'I heard her say just now when they passed me in the
mazurka--_Ludovic, ne faites plus ca en dansant; je frissonne toute_--'

The ladies laughed in chorus, fluttering their fans. The first notes of
a Hungarian waltz floated in from the next room. The gentlemen came to
claim their partners. At last Andrea was able to offer Elena his arm and
carry her off.

'I thought I should have died waiting for you! If you had not come I
should have gone to find you--anywhere. When I saw you come in I could
scarcely repress a cry. This is only the second evening I have met you,
and yet I feel as if I had loved you for years. The thought of you and
you alone is now the life of my life.'

He uttered his burning words of love in a low voice, looking straight
before him, and she listened in a similar attitude, apparently quite
impassive, almost stony. Only a sprinkling of people remained in the
gallery. Betw