She advanced along the frescoed gallery where the crowd was thinnest,
her long white train rippling like a wave over the floor behind her. All
white and simple, she passed slowly along, turning from side to side in
answer to the numerous greetings, with an air of manifest fatigue and a
somewhat strained smile which drew down the corners of her mouth, while
her eyes looked larger than ever under the low white brow, her extreme
pallor imparting to her whole face a look so ethereal and delicate as to
be almost ghostly. This was not the same woman who had sat beside him at
the Ateleta's table, nor the one of the Sale Rooms, nor the one standing
waiting for a moment on the pavement of the Via Sistina. Her beauty at
this moment was of ideal nobility, and shone with additional splendour
among all these women heated with the dance, over-excited and restless
in their manner. The men looked at her and grew thoughtful; no mind was
so obtuse or empty that she did not exercise a disturbing influence upon
it, inspire some vague and indefinable hope. He whose heart was free
imagined with a thrill what such a woman's love would be; he who loved
already conceived a vague regret, and dreamed of raptures hitherto
unknown; he who bore a wound dealt by some woman's jealousy or
faithlessness suddenly felt that he might easily recover.
Thus she advanced amid the homage of the men, enveloped by their gaze.
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