"How pale you are!" she said to him when they reached the door of the
house.

"Oh! Ginevra, if it concerned my life only!--"

Though Bartolomeo had been notified by his wife of the formal
presentation Ginevra was to make of her lover, he would not advance to
meet him, but remained seated in his usual arm-chair, and the
sternness of his brow was awful.

"Father," said Ginevra, "I bring you a person you will no doubt be
pleased to see,--a soldier who fought beside the Emperor at
Mont-Saint-Jean."

The baron rose, cast a sidelong glance at Luigi, and said, in a
sardonic tone:--

"Monsieur is not decorated."

"I no longer wear the Legion of honor," replied Luigi, timidly, still
standing.

Ginevra, mortified by her father's incivility, dragged forward a
chair. The officer's answer seemed to satisfy the old servant of
Napoleon. Madame Piombo, observing that her husband's eyebrows were
resuming their natural position, said, by way of conversation:

"Monsieur's resemblance to a person we knew in Corsica, Nina Porta, is
really surprising."