'What will you give me,' continued Andrea, 'if I extract from the holy
sermon a voluptuous motto to fit you?'
'I don't know,' she replied laughing, holding a glass of Chablis in her
long slender fingers. 'Anything you like.'
'The substantive of the adjective.'
'What?'
'We will come back to that presently. The word is: _linguatica_--Messer
Ludovico, you can add this clause to your litanies--'_Rosa linguatica,
glube nos_.'
'What a pity,' said Musellaro, 'that you are not at the table of a
sixteenth-century prince, sitting between a Violante and an Imperia with
Pietro Aretino, Giulio Romano, and Marc' Antonio!'
CHAPTER II
The year was dying gracefully. A late wintry sun filled the sky over
Rome with a soft, mild, golden light that made the air feel almost
spring-like. The streets were full as on a Sunday in May. A stream of
carriages passed and repassed rapidly through the Piazza Barberini and
the Piazza di Spagna, and from thence a vague and continuous rumble
mounted to the Trinita de' Monti and the Via Sistina and even faintly
reached the apartments of the Palazzo Zuccari.
The rooms began slowly to fill with the scent exhaled from numberless
vases of flowers. Full-blown roses hung their heavy heads over crystal
vases that opened like diamond lilies on a golden stem, similar to those
standing behind the Virgin in the _tondo_ of Botticelli in the Borghese
Gallery.
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