wouldn't have dresses so fussy as Gheta's—in figure, anyhow, she was perhaps her sister's superior—fine materials, simply cut, with a ruffle at the throat and hem, a satin wrap pointed at the back, with a soft tassel. . . .
Orsi was talking to Gheta, and she was answering him with a brevity that had cast a shade of annoyance over the Marchese Sanviano's large features. Lavinia agreed with her father that Gheta was a fool. She must be thirty, the younger suddenly realized. Bembo was growing hysterical from the tea and his own shrill anecdotes. He resembled a grotesque performing bird with a large beak. Lavinia's mind returned to the silent dark man who had passed in a cab. She wished, now, that she had been sitting at the front of the window—the object of his unsparing intense gaze. She realized that he was extremely handsome, and contrasted his erect slim carriage with Orsi's thick slouched shoulders. The latter interrupted her look, misinterpreted it, and said something about candy from Giacosa's.
Lavinia thanked him and rose; the discussion about the tea table became unbearably stupid, no better than the flat chatter of the nuns at school.
Her room was small and barely furnished, with a thin rug over the stone floor, and opened upon the court about which the house was built. The Sanvianos occupied the second floor. Below, the piano nobile was rented by the proprietor of a great wine industry. It was evident that he was going out to dinner, for his dark blue brougham was waiting at the inner entrance. The horse, a fine sleek animal, was stamping impatiently, with ringing shoes, on the paved court. A flowering magnolia tree
