While this scene was passing at the studio the father and mother of
Ginevra were becoming impatient at her non-return.

"It is six o'clock, and Ginevra not yet home!" cried Bartolomeo.

"She was never so late before," said his wife.

The two old people looked at each other with an anxiety that was not
usual with them. Too anxious to remain in one place, Bartolomeo rose
and walked about the salon with an active step for a man who was over
seventy-seven years of age. Thanks to his robust constitution, he had
changed but little since the day of his arrival in Paris, and, despite
his tall figure, he walked erect. His hair, now white and sparse, left
uncovered a broad and protuberant skull, which gave a strong idea of
his character and firmness. His face, seamed with deep wrinkles, had
taken, with age, a nobler expression, preserving the pallid tones
which inspire veneration. The ardor of passions still lived in the
fire of his eyes, while the eyebrows, which were not wholly whitened,
retained their terrible mobility. The aspect of the head was stern,
but it conveyed the impression that Piombo had a right to be so. His
kindness, his gentleness were known only to his wife and daughter. In
his functions, or in presence of strangers, he never laid aside the
majesty that time had impressed upon his person; and the habit of
frowning with his heavy eyebrows, contracting the wrinkles of his
face, and giving to his eyes a Napoleonic fixity, made his manner of
accosting others icy.

During the course of his political life he had been so generally
feared that he was thought unsocial, and it is not difficult to
explain the causes of that opinion. The life, morals, and fidelity of