first inclined to resent it as a liberty, and to rebuke him; but she
thought better of it, and only glanced at him haughtily.

It was not the first time she had found it to her advantage to accept
Trenta's hints. Trenta was a man of the world, and he had his eyes
open. What he meant, however, she could not even guess.

Meanwhile the count had drawn a chair beside Enrica.

"Yes, yes, the Orsetti ball," he said, absently, passing his hand
through the masses of black curls that rested upon his forehead.

He was following out, in his own mind, the notion of addressing an
ode to her in the character of the young Madonna--the uninstructed
Madonna--without that look of pensive suffering painters put into her
eyes.

The Madonna figured prominently in Marescotti's creed, spite of his
belief in the stern precepts of Savonarola--the plastic creed of an
artist, made up of heavenly eyes, ravishing forms, melodious sounds,
rich color, sweeping rhythms, moonlight, and violent emotions.

"I was not there myself--no, or I should have been aware you had
not honored the Countess Orsetti with your presence. But in the
morning--that glorious mass in the old cathedral--you were there?"

Enrica answered that she had not left the house all day, at which the
count raised his eyebrows in astonishment.

"That mass," he continued, "in celebration of a local miracle