flush tinged her cheeks.

"Here he is!" said Giardini, in an undertone, clutching the Count's
arm and nodding to a tall man. "How pale and grave he is poor man! His
hobby has not trotted to his mind to-day, I fancy."

Andrea's prepossession for Marianna was crossed by the captivating
charm which Gambara could not fail to exert over every genuine artist.
The composer was now forty; but although his high brow was bald and
lined with a few parallel, but not deep, wrinkles; in spite, too, of
hollow temples where the blue veins showed through the smooth,
transparent skin, and of the deep sockets in which his black eyes were
sunk, with their large lids and light lashes, the lower part of his
face made him still look young, so calm was its outline, so soft the
modeling. It could be seen at a glance that in this man passion had
been curbed to the advantage of the intellect; that the brain alone
had grown old in some great struggle.

Andrea shot a swift look at Marianna, who was watching him. And he
noted the beautiful Italian head, the exquisite proportion and rich
coloring that revealed one of those organizations in which every human
power is harmoniously balanced, he sounded the gulf that divided this
couple, brought together by fate. Well content with the promise he
inferred from this dissimilarity between the husband and wife, he made
no attempt to control a liking which ought to have raised a barrier
between the fair Marianna and himself. He was already conscious of
feeling a sort of respectful pity for this man, whose only joy she
was, as he understood the dignified and serene acceptance of ill
fortune that was expressed in Gambara's mild and melancholy gaze.