That was in
the early times of his happiness, when he came away warm from her kisses
and full of his new-found bliss; the bells of Trinita de' Monti, of San
Isidoro and the Cappuccini rang out the Angelus into the dawning day,
with a muffled peal as if out of the far distance--at the corner of the
street, fires glowed red round cauldrons of boiling asphalt--a little
herd of goats stood against the white wall of the slumbering house----
These forgotten sensations rose up once more out of the depths of his
consciousness, and, for an instant, a wave of the old love swept over
his soul, for one moment he tried to imagine that Elena was still the
Elena of those days, that his happiness had endured till now, that none
of these miserable things were true. As he crossed the threshold of the
palace, all this illusory ferment died away on the instant, for Lord
Heathfield came forward to greet him with his habitual and somewhat
ambiguous smile.
With that his torture began.
Elena appeared, and shaking hands cordially with him in her husband's
presence, she said--'Bravo, Andrea! Come and help us, come and help us!'
She talked and gesticulated with much vivacity and looked very girlish
in a close-fitting jacket of dark-blue cloth, trimmed round the high
collar and the cuffs with black astrachan and fine black braiding. She
kept one hand in her pocket in a graceful attitude, and with the other
pointed out the various wall-hangings, the pictures, the furniture,
asking his advice as to their most advantageous disposal.
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