Besides the festival, and Count Nobili's audacity, the marchesa had a
further cause for ill-humor. No one had come on that evening to play
her usual game of whist. Even Trenta had deserted her. She had said
to herself that when she--the Marchesa Guinigi--"received," no other
company, no other engagement whatever, ought to interfere with the
honor that her company conferred. These were valid causes of ill-humor
to any lady of the marchesa's humor.

She was seated now in the sitting-room of her own particular suite,
one of three small and rather stuffy rooms, on the second floor. These
rooms consisted of an anteroom, covered with a cretonne paper of blue
and brown, a carpetless floor, a table, and some common, straw chairs
placed against the wall. From the anteroom two doors led into two
bedrooms, one on either side. Another door, opposite the entrance,
opened into the sitting-room.

All the windows this way faced toward the garden, the wall of which
ran parallel to the palace and to the street. The marchesa's room
had flaunting green walls with a red border; the ceiling was gaudily
painted with angels, flowers, and festoons. Some colored prints hung
on the walls--a portrait of the Empress Eugénie on horseback, in a
Spanish dress, and four glaring views of Vesuvius in full eruption. A
divan, covered with well-worn chintz, ran round two sides of the
room. Between the ranges of the graceful casements stood a marble
console-table, with a mirror in a black frame. An open card-table
was placed near the marchesa. On the table there was a pack of not
over-clean cards, some markers, and a pair of candles (the candles
still unlighted, for the days are long, and it is only six o'clock).
There was not a single ornament in the whole room, nor any object
whatever on which the eye could rest with pleasure. White-cotton