mind; she wanted, in bitter sentences, to tell him how infinitely superior the Spaniard was to such fat easy grubs as himself. She longed to make clear to him exactly what it was that women admired in men—romance and daring and splendid strength. It might suit Gheta, who had wrinkles, to encourage such men as Cesare Orsi; their wealth might appeal to cold and material minds, but they could never hope to inspire passion; no one would ever cherish for them a hopeless lifelong love.
"Do you know," Orsi declared with firm conviction, "you are even handsomer than your sister!"
"Fool! fool! fool!" But she could not, of course, say a word of what was in her thoughts. She met his admiring gaze with a blank face, conscious of how utterly her exterior belied and hid the actual Lavinia Sanviano. She felt wearily old, sophisticated. In her room, dressing for the evening, she made up her mind that she must have a black dinner gown—later she would wear no other shade.
Anna Mantegazza knocked and entered just as Lavinia had finished with her hair and was slipping into the familiar white dress. There had been, within the last few hours, a perceptible change in the former's attitude toward her. Lavinia realized that Anna Mantegazza regarded her with a new interest, a greater and more personal friendliness.
"My dear Lavinia!" she exclaimed, critically overlooking the other's preparations. "You look very appealing—like a snowdrop; exactly. I should say the toilet
