The infinite gradations
of red, from violent crimson to the faded pink of over-ripe
strawberries, mingled with the most delicate and almost imperceptible
variations of white, from the immaculate purity of freshly fallen snow
to the indefinable shades of new milk, the sap of the reed, dull silver,
alabaster and opal.
'It is a _festa_ to-day,' she said, her laughing face appearing over the
flowers that covered her whole bosom up to the throat.
'Thanks! Thanks!' Andrea cried again and again as he helped her to empty
the mass of bloom on to the table, all over the books and papers and
portfolios--'_Rosa rosarum!_'
Her hands once free, she proceeded to collect all the vases in the room
and fill them with roses, arranging each cluster with rare artistic
skill. While she did so, she talked of a thousand things with her usual
blithe volubility, almost as if compensating herself for the parsimony
of words and laughter she had exercised up till now, out of regard for
Andrea's taciturn melancholy.
Presently she remarked, 'On the 15th we expect a beautiful guest, Donna
Maria Ferres y Capdevila, the wife of the Plenipotentiary for Guatemala.
Do you know her?'
'I think not,'
'No, I do not suppose you could. She only returned to Italy a few months
ago, but she will spend next winter in Rome because her husband has been
appointed to that post.
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