She connected him vaguely with AEneas and another person called
Regulus. It was all rather uncertain.

What she saw clearly was that the Baron wished to make Malipieri feel
at his ease, but that Malipieri's idea of being at his ease was
certainly not founded on a wish to talk about himself. So the
conversation languished for some time.

The Baroness, who knew about as much about Carthage as Sabina, made a
few disconnected remarks, interspersed with laudatory allusions to the
young man's immense learning, for she wished to please her husband,
though she had not the slightest idea why Malipieri was asked to
dinner. Finding that he was not perceptibly flattered by what she
said, she began to talk about the Venetian aristocracy, for she knew
that his name was historical, and she recognized in him at once the
characteristics of the nobility she worshipped. Malipieri smiled
politely, and in answer to a direct question admitted that his mother
had been a Gradenigo.

The Baroness was delighted at this information.

"To think," she said, "that by a mere accident you and Donna Sabina
should meet here, the descendants of two of the oldest families of the
Italian aristocracy!"

"I am a republican," observed Malipieri quietly.

"You!" cried the Baroness in amazement. "You, the offspring of such
races as the Malipieri and the Gradenigo a republican, a socialist, an
anarchist!"