CHAPTER II.


On that same night, when Veronica had gone to her room, Bosio Macomer
remained alone with the countess in the small drawing-room in which the
family generally spent the evening. Gregorio was presumably in his
study, busy with his perpetual accounts or otherwise occupied. He very
often spent the hours between dinner and bed-time by himself, leaving
his brother to keep his wife company if Veronica chose to retire early.

The room was small and the first impression of colour which it gave was
that of a strong, deep yellow. There was yellow damask on the walls, the
curtains were of an old sort of silk material in stripes of yellow and
chocolate, and most of the furniture was covered with yellow satin. The
whole was in the style of the early part of this century, modified by
the bad taste of the Second Empire, with much gilded carving about the
doors and the corners of the big panels in which the damask was
stretched, while the low, vaulted ceiling was a mass of gilt stucco,
modelled in heavy acanthus leaves and arabesques, from the centre of
which hung a chandelier of white Venetian glass. There were no pictures
on the walls, and there were no flowers nor plants in pots, to relieve
the strong colour which filled the eye. Nevertheless the room had the
air of being inhabited, and was less glaring and stiff and old-fashioned
than it might seem from this description. There were a good many books
on the tables, chiefly French novels, as yellow as the hangings; and
there were writing materials and a couple of newspapers and two or three