Malipieri bowed to the Baroness, who held out her hand cordially, and
then to Sabina.

"Donna Sabina Conti," said the Baron with extreme distinctness, in
order that his guest should be quite sure of the young girl's
identity.

Sabina looked down modestly, as the nuns had told her to do when a
young man was introduced to her. At the same moment Malipieri's eyes
turned quietly and quickly to the Baron, and a look of intelligence
passed between the two men. Malipieri understood that Sabina was one
of the family in whose former palace he was living. Then he glanced
again at the young girl for one moment, before making a commonplace
remark to the Baroness, and after that Sabina felt that she was at
liberty to look at him.

She saw a very dark man of average height, with short black hair that
grew rather far back from his very white forehead, and wearing a
closely clipped black beard and moustache which did not by any means
hide the firm lines of the mouth and chin. From the strongly marked
eyebrows downward his face was almost of the colour of newly cast
bronze, and the dusky hue contrasted oddly with the clear whiteness of
his forehead. He was evidently a man who had lately been living much
out of doors under a burning sun. Sabina thought that his very bright
black eyes and boldly curved features suggested a young hawk, and he
had a look of compact strength and a way of moving which betrayed both
great energy and extreme quickness.

But there was something more, which Sabina recognized at the first
glance. She felt instantly that he was not like the Baron and his