'Quite true! I have hung up my heart—both Catholic and Pagan—as an ex-voto between the obelisk of the Trinità and the column of the Conception.'

She laughed as she spoke. A sonnet to this suspended heart rose instantly to his lips, but he did not give it utterance, for he was in no mood to continue their conversation in this light vein of false sentiment, which broke the sweet spell she had been weaving about him. He was silent therefore.

She, too, remained a moment pensive, and then threw herself with renewed vivacity into the general conversation, prodigal of wit and laughter, flashing her teeth and her bon mots at all in[12] turn. Francesca was retailing spicily a piece of gossip about the Princess di Ferentino on the subject of a recent, and somewhat risky, adventure of hers with Giovanella Daddi.

[12]

'By the by—the Ferentino announces another charity bazaar for Epiphany,' said the Baroness d'Isola. 'Does anybody know anything about it yet?'

'I am one of the patronesses,' said Elena Muti.

'And you are a most valuable patroness,' broke in Don Filippo del Monte, a man of about forty, almost bald, a keen sharpener of epigrams, whose face seemed a sort of Socratic mask; the right eye was forever on the move, and flashed with a thousand changing expressions, while the left remained stationary and glazed behind the single eye-glass, as if he used the one for expressing himself and the other for seeing. 'At the May bazaar, you brought in a perfect shower of gold.'

'Oh, the May bazaar—what a mad affair that was!' exclaimed the Marchesa.

While the servants were filling the glasses with iced champagne, she added, 'Do you remember, Elena, our stalls were close together?'

'Five louis d'or a drink—five louis d'or a bite!' Don Filippo called, in the voice of a street-hawker. Elena and the Marchesa burst out laughing.

'Why yes, of course, Filippo, you cried the wares,' said Donna Francesca. 'Now what a pity you were not there, cugino mio! For five louis you might have eaten fruit out of which I had had the first bite, and have drunk champagne out of the hollow of Elena's hands for five more.'

'How scandalous!' broke in the Baroness d'Isola, with a horrified grimace.

'Ah, Mary, I like that! And did you not sell cigarettes 

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