Lively, chattering, never still, lavish of infantile
diminutives and silvery peals of laughter, easily moved to sudden
caresses and as sudden melancholies and quick bursts of anger, she
contributed to her share of love a vast amount of movement, much variety
and many caprices. But Conny Landbrooke's melodious twitterings had left
no more mark on Andrea's heart than the light musical echo left in one's
ear for a time by some gay ritornella. More than once in some pensive
hour of twilight melancholy, she had said to him with a mist of tears
before her eyes--'I know you do not love me.' And in truth he did not
love her, she did not by any means satisfy his longings. His ideal was
less northern in character. Ideally he felt himself attracted by those
courtesans of the sixteenth century, over whose faces there would appear
to be drawn some indefinable veil of sorcery, some transparent mask of
enchantment, some divine nocturnal spell.
The moment Andrea set eyes on the Duchess of Scerni, he said to
himself--'_This_ is my Ideal Woman!' and his whole soul went out to her
in a transport of joy, in the presentiment of the future.
CHAPTER III
The next day the public sale-room of the Via Sistina was thronged with
fashionable people, come to look on at the famous contest.
It was raining hard; the light in the low-roofed damp rooms was dull and
gray.
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