_Adoremus!_
The confession was perfectly sincere, as was the adoration also, though
both were uttered in a tone of banter. Donna Maria evidently felt the
sincerity, for she coloured slightly as she said with peculiar
earnestness--
'No--don't--please don't kneel.'
He rose, and she offered him her hand, adding, 'I will forgive you this
time because you are an invalid.'
She wore a dress of a curious indefinable dull rusty red, one of those
so-called aesthetic colours one meets with in the pictures of the Early
Masters or of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was arranged in a multitude of
straight regular folds beginning immediately under the arms, and was
confined at the waist by a wide blue-green ribbon, of the pale tinge of
a faded turquoise, that fell in a great knot at her side. The sleeves
were very full and soft, and were gathered in closely at the wrist.
Another ribbon of the same shade, but much narrower, encircled her neck
and was tied at the left side in a small bow, and a similar ribbon
fastened the end of the prodigious plait which fell from under her straw
hat, round which was twined a wreath of hyacinths like that of Alma
Tadema's Pandora. A great Persian turquoise, her sole ornament, shaped
like a scarabeus and engraved with talismanic characters, fastened her
dress at the throat.
'Let us wait for Delfina,' she said, 'and then, what do you say to our
going as far as the gate of the Cybele? Would that suit you?'
She was full of delicate consideration for the convalescent Andrea was
still very pale and thin, which made his eyes look extraordinarily
large, the somewhat sensual expression of his mouth forming a singular
and not unattractive contrast to the upper part of his face.
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