It was not the first time she had found it to her advantage to accept Trenta’s hints.  Trenta was a man of the world, and he had his eyes open.  What he meant, however, she could not even guess.

Meanwhile the count had drawn a chair beside Enrica.

“Yes, yes, the Orsetti ball,” he said, absently, passing his hand through the masses of black curls that rested upon his forehead.

He was following out, in his own mind, the notion of addressing an ode to her in the character of the young Madonna—­the uninstructed Madonna—­without that look of pensive suffering painters put into her eyes.

The Madonna figured prominently in Marescotti’s creed, spite of his belief in the stern precepts of Savonarola—­the plastic creed of an artist, made up of heavenly eyes, ravishing forms, melodious sounds, rich color, sweeping rhythms, moonlight, and violent emotions.

“I was not there myself—­no, or I should have been aware you had not honored the Countess Orsetti with your presence.  But in the morning—­that glorious mass in the old cathedral—­you were there?”

Enrica answered that she had not left the house all day, at which the count raised his eyebrows in astonishment.

“That mass,” he continued, “in celebration of a local miracle (respectable from its antiquity), has haunted me ever since.  The gloomy splendor of the venerable cathedral overwhelmed me; the happy faces that met me on every side, the spontaneous rejoicing of the whole population, touched me deeply.  I longed to make them free.  They deserve freedom; they shall have it!” A dark fire glistened in his eye.  “I have been lost in day-dreams ever since; I must give them utterance.”  And he gazed steadfastly at Enrica.—­“I have not left my room, marchesa, ever since”—­at last Marescotti left Enrica’s side, and approached the marchesa—­“until an hour ago, when Baldassare”—­and the count bowed to Adonis, still seated sulky in a corner—­“came and carried me off in the hope that you would permit me to join your rubber.  Had I known”—­he added, in a lower voice, bending his head toward Enrica.  Then he stopped, suddenly aware that every one was listening to all he said (a fact which he had been far too much absorbed to notice previously), colored, and retreated to the sofa with the spindle-legs.

“Per Bacco!” whispered the cavaliere to the marchesa, sitting near her on the other side; “I am convinced poor Marescotti has never touched a morsel of food since that mass—­I am certain of it.  He always lives upon a poetical diet, poor devil!—­rose-leaves and the beauties of Nature, with a warm dish now and then in the way of a ragout of conspiracy.  God help him! he’s a greater lunatic than ever.”  This was spoken aside into the marchesa’s ear.  “If you have a soul of pity, marchesa, order him a chicken before we begin playing, or he will faint upon the floor.”  The marchesa smiled.

“I don’t like impressionable people at all,” she responded, in the same tone of voice.  “In my opinion, feelings should be concealed, not exhibited.”  And she sighed, recalling her own silent vigils on the floor beneath, unknown to all save the cavaliere.