in dead-leaf silk, she wore a large hat, which alone looked somewhat
extravagant. And seeing that Dario was staring at her, the priest
inquired her name, whereat the young Prince smiled. Oh! she was nobody,
La Tonietta was the name that people gave her; she was one of the few
/demi-mondaines/ that Roman society talked of. Then, with the freeness
and frankness which his race displays in such matters, Dario added some
particulars. La Tonietta's origin was obscure; some said that she was the
daughter of an innkeeper of Tivoli, and others that of a Neapolitan
banker. At all events, she was very intelligent, had educated herself,
and knew thoroughly well how to receive and entertain people at the
little palazzo in the Via dei Mille, which had been given to her by old
Marquis Manfredi now deceased. She made no scandalous show, had but one
protector at a time, and the princesses and duchesses who paid attention
to her at the Corso every afternoon, considered her nice-looking. One
peculiarity had made her somewhat notorious. There was some one whom she
loved and from whom she never accepted aught but a bouquet of white
roses; and folks would smile indulgently when at times for weeks together
she was seen driving round the Pincio with those pure, white bridal
flowers on the carriage seat.

Dario, however, suddenly paused in his explanations to address a
ceremonious bow to a lady who, accompanied by a gentleman, drove by in a
large landau. Then he simply said to the priest: "My mother."

Pierre already knew of her. Viscount de la Choue had told him her story,
how, after Prince Onofrio Boccanera's death, she had married again,
although she was already fifty; how at the Corso, just like some young
girl, she had hooked with her eyes a handsome man to her liking--one,
too, who was fifteen years her junior. And Pierre also knew who that man
was, a certain Jules Laporte, an ex-sergeant of the papal Swiss Guard, an