Hanging lamps of wrought iron
shed an uncertain light over the stamped leather panelling of the walls,
the carved oak chests, the antique busts on pedestals. Under a
magnificently embroidered baldachin blazed the ducal arms: a unicorn on
a field gules. A bronze card-tray, heaped with cards, stood in the
middle of a table, and happening to cast his eye over them, Andrea
noticed the one which Grimiti had just left lying on the top--_Bonne
chance!_--The ironical augury still rang in his ears.
Mademoiselle now made her appearance. 'The duchess is feeling a little
better,' she said. 'I think the Signor Conte might see her for a moment.
This way, if you please.'
She was a woman past her first youth, rather thin and dressed in black,
with a pair of gray eyes that glittered curiously under the curls of her
false fringe. Her step and her movements generally were light, not to
say furtive, as of one who is in the habit of attending upon invalids
or of executing secret orders.
'This way, Signor Conte.'
She preceded Andrea though the long flight of dimly-lighted rooms, the
thick soft carpets deadening every sound; and even through the almost
uncontrollable tumult of his soul, the young man was conscious of an
instinctive feeling of repulsion against her, without being able to
assign an adequate reason for it.
Arrived in front of a door concealed by two pieces of tapestry of the
Medicean period, bordered with deep red velvet, she stopped.
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