The company, for the most part, laughed and went into the dining-room, whence the sound of revelry gradually grew louder.  The Count Rosso alone remained with the hostess.  “Come, Fava, don’t be so headstrong—­you’re spoiling the party.”

“Spoiling the party!  Do you hear the noise they are making?  Is that the way to conduct one’s self in a lady’s house—­I said a lady’s house!  Why do you look at me like that?  Am I not a lady just as much as that daughter of an Indian squaw from over the Atlantic?  Those in there”—­she pointed with her thumb toward the dining-room—­“they would not behave so in the Palazzo Sansevero!” Then, without another word, she followed where she had pointed, so fast that her thin draperies fluttered behind the lithe lines of her figure like butterfly wings.  On the threshold of the dining-room she paused, like the bad fairy at the christening.

“Why should you think you can behave in my house as you would not behave in the house of a princess?”

The count, who had followed her, seemed relieved that she mentioned no specific name.  Her remark seemed to touch a chord of sympathy in the company, for the women, especially, became very quiet.  Favorita sat down at the end of the table between the manager and an empty place.

“Eat something, my girl!” he said to her.  “It will be the best thing you can do!”

“My need is not the same as yours—­I have emptiness of heart.”

Her alert hearing caught a footfall, and she was looking eagerly at the door when Giovanni Sansevero entered.  At once her face became transfigured.  “Ah, there thou art, my mouse!” she said, pulling out the chair beside her for him.

He smiled and nodded familiarly to all at the table.

“At least it is good for the rest of us that you come, Prince!” said the manager.  “Fava is in a frightful mood.”  But there was that in Giovanni’s expression that made the manager’s speech turn quickly from any too personal allusion, and a qualifying clause was trailed at the end of his sentence, “She may show you more politeness.”

Giovanni looked annoyed.  The dancer, to appease him, said gently:  “You know I am nervous from overwork.  The rehearsals have been doubled lately.  If you don’t come when I expect you, I imagine horrors!” The manager was about to put his fork into a grilled quail, when she whisked it away and put it on Giovanni’s plate.  The former was obliged to vent his indignation against her obstinately turned back and deaf ears.  She was conscious of nothing and of no one but Giovanni, whom she was feeding with her own fork.  His appetite, however, paying small compliment to her attention, she arose, and he followed her into the other room.  Whereupon her guests, less constrained without her, drank and were merry.

In the salon Giovanni’s musical, caressing voice was saying, “You look bewitching to-night, Fava mia!” He covered her with his glance, so that she preened herself.  He laughed lightly at her vanity, and, leaning over, kissed her lovely shoulder.  Quickly, with both hands she held him close, her cheek against his.