For the first time in his life, Andrea Sperelli found himself face to
face with a _real_ passion--one of those rare and supreme manifestations
of woman's capacity for love which occasionally flash their superb and
terrible lightnings across the shifting gray sky of earthly loves. But
he did not care a jot, and went on with the pitiless work which was to
destroy both himself and his victim.
CHAPTER III
The next day, according to their agreement at the concert, Andrea found
Donna Maria in the Piazza di Spagna with Delfina, looking at the antique
jewellery in a shop window. At the first sound of his voice she turned,
and a bright flush stained the pallor of her cheek. Together they then
examined the eighteenth-century jewels, the paste buckles and hair
ornaments, the enamelled watches, the gold and ivory tortoise-shell
snuff-boxes, all these pretty trifles of a by-gone day which afforded an
impression of harmonious richness under the clear morning sun.
Everywhere about them, the flower-sellers were offering yellow and white
jonquils, double violets, and long branches of flowering almond. There
was a breath of Spring in the air. The column of the Immaculate
Conception rose lightly into the sunshine, like a flower stem with the
_Rosa mystica_ on its summit; the Barcaccia glistened in a shower of
diamonds, the stairway of the Trinita opened its arms gaily towards the
church of Charles VIII.
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