across the sunlit plain with its green vineyards, bright meadows, golden
fields, white roads, light-colored houses, and dusky gardens. Casanova
concerned himself little about the view, and hastened to remove the
stains of travel, being impelled less by hunger than by an eager
curiosity to see Marcolina face to face. He did not change, for he
wished to reserve his best suit for evening wear.




CHAPTER TWO.


When Casanova reentered the hall, a panelled chamber on the ground
floor, there were seated at the well-furnished board, his host and
hostess, their three daughters, and a young woman. She was wearing
a simple grey dress of some shimmering material. She had a graceful
figure. Her gaze rested on him as frankly and indifferently as if he
were a member of the household, or had been a guest a hundred times
before. Her face did not light up in the way to which he had grown
accustomed in earlier years, when he had been a charming youth, or later
in his handsome prime. But for a good while now Casanova had ceased to
expect this from a new acquaintance. Nevertheless, even of late the
mention of his name had usually sufficed to arouse on a woman's face an
expression of tardy admiration, or at least some trace of regret, which
was an admission that the hearer would have loved to meet him a few
years earlier. Yet now, when Olivo introduced him to Marcolina as Signor
Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, she smiled as she would have smiled at
some utterly indifferent name that carried with it no aroma of adventure
and mystery. Even when he took his seat by her side, kissed her hand,