“Yes,” she replied, still paler; “are you surprised?” and the question was put harshly.
“No,” he said, speaking with difficulty, so great was his emotion; “Flaminia Colonna is a woman and a friend ... while I----”
“Is that the reason why you didn’t go to Cecilia Metella with me?” she resumed.
“What were you fearing?” in a voice still deeper.
“Ridicule. Every one would have laughed at me, seeing me with you.”
She fell back. Her eyes grew clouded, but she had the strength not to open her mouth, to walk away without turning, leaving the man who had told his secret stretched on the sofa like a miserable weakling.
The ices were being served and the dinner was drawing to a close. All of a sudden, in the midst of the slightly laboured and frivolous conversation which occasionally gave place to the species of pompous gravity, Francesco Serlupi, a young man celebrated for his blunders, which assumed either a grotesque or dramatic aspect, again committed one of them.
“Do you know that the Fiore couple have returned home from their honeymoon? It seems that things are not going too well.”
Maria Guasco, behind the huge mass of white lilies and red roses, which almost hid her, had not even moved an eyelid; Emilio, taciturn as ever, had lowered his eyes. The other guests, Flaminia Colonna, Gianni Provana, and the Senator, Fabio Guasco, seemed distracted.
“It seems that the Costanzi is to be closed for a week,” remarked Gianni Provana, in an attempt to change the conversation.
But Francesco Serlupi stuck to his gaucherie, and proclaimed obstinately--
“However, it is as I have said, Marco Fiore returned to the club yesterday, the day following his return, and yesterday he was at the races without Vittoria.”
Again a heavy silence. Maria, with a fervid glance, invoked the aid of Flaminia. She promptly, with her penetrating voice, which was the complement of her dark and proud figure, and of her beauty full of grace and expression, said--
“I am not surprised at it. As a matter of fact Marco Fiore has always liked a club life; his mother, Donna Arduina, had always complained to me about it. Besides, Vittoria has such a reserved and timid character.” She emphasised her slow and tactful remark, fixing her sweet grey eyes on Francesco, to make him understand that he must say no more on the subject. He, as usual, understood too late the mischief he had done, and became silent, keeping his head bent over his plate, not daring to look at his hosts, anxious to escape, as he always did, when he discovered he had committed an enormous indiscretion.