The soft thick air of the ball-room swayed rhythmically to the swell and fall of the violins; the perfume of roses and lilies was whirled into waves of sweetness, and the beating of many young hearts seemed to tremble musically through the nameless harmony of instrument and voice, and rustling silk, and gliding feet. In the passionately moving symphony of sound and sight and touch, the whole weal and woe and longing of life throbbed in a threefold pace.

The dwellers in an older world did well to call the dance divine, and to make it the gift of a nimble goddess; truly, without a waltz the world would have lacked a very divine element. Few people can really doubt what the step was that David danced before the ark.

The ball was at a house where members of various parties met by common consent as on neutral ground. There are few such houses in Rome, or, indeed, anywhere else, as there are very few people clever enough, or stupid enough, to manage such an establishment. Men of entirely inimical convictions and associations will occasionally go to the house of a great genius or a great fool, out of sheer curiosity, and are content to enjoy themselves and even to talk to each other a little, when no one is looking. It is neutral ground, and the white flag of the ball-dress keeps the peace as it sweeps past the black cloth legs of clericals and the grey cloth legs of the military contingent, past the legs of all sorts and conditions of men elbowing each other for a front place with the ladies.

Conspicuous by her height and rare magnificence of queenly beauty was Madame de Charleroi, moving stately along as she rested her fingers on the arm of a minister less than half her size. But there was a look of weariness and preoccupation on her features that did not escape her dear friends.

"Diana is certainly going to be thin and scraggy," remarked a black-browed dame of Rome, fat and solid, a perfect triumph of the flesh. She said it behind her fan to her neighbour.

"It is sad," said the other, "she is growing old."

"Ah yes," remarked her husband, who chanced to be standing by and was in a bad humour, "she was born in 1844, the year you left school, my dear." The black-browed lady smiled sweetly at her discomfited friend, who looked unutterable scorn at her consort.

Donna Diana glanced uneasily about the room, expecting every moment to see her brother appear with Miss Carnethy. She was very unhappy about the whole affair, though she could not exactly explain to herself the reason of what she felt. Miss Carnethy was rich, had a certain kind of distinguished beauty about her, was young, well-born,—but all that did not compensate in Madame de Charleroi's mind for the fact that she was a heretic, a freethinker, a dabbler in progressist ideas, and—and—what? She could not tell. It must be prejudice of the most absurd kind! She would not submit to it a moment longer, and if the opportunity offered she would go to Miss Carnethy and say something pleasant to her. Donna Diana had a very kind and gentle Italian heart hidden away in her proud bosom, and she had also a determination to be just and honest in all situations,—most of all when she feared that her personal sympathies were leading her away.

The diplomat at her side chatted pleasantly, perceiving that she was wholly preoccupied; he talked quite as much to himself as to her, after he had discovered that she was not listening. And Donna Diana determined to do a kind action, and the swinging rhythm of the straining, surging waltz was in her ears. She was just wondering idly enough what the little diplomat had been saying to her during the last ten minutes, when she saw her brother enter the room with Miss Carnethy on his arm. They had met in one of the outer drawing-rooms and had come in to dance. Donna Diana watched them as they caught the measure and whirled away.

"She is terribly interesting," remarked the little man beside her as he noticed where she was looking.

"She is also decidedly a beauty," answered Madame de Charleroi, with the calm authority of a woman whose looks have never been questioned.

People who are in love are proverbially amusing objects to the general public. There is an air of shyness about them, or else a ridiculous incapacity for perceiving the details of life, or at least an absurd infatuation for each other, most refreshing to witness. There is no mistaking the manner of them, if the thing is genuine.

The sadness that had been on Donna Diana's face, and which the resolution to be civil to Miss Carnethy had momentarily dispelled, returned now, as she watched the young couple. She remembered her own courtship, and she fancied she saw similar conditions in the wooing now going on under her eyes. Marcantonio was furiously in love, after his manner, but she thought Leonora's face looked hard. How could she let her brother marry a woman who did not love him? Her resolution to be civil wavered.

But just then, as luck would have it, the waltz brought the pair near to her. Marcantonio was talking pleasantly, with a quick smile that came and went at every minute. Leonora stood looking down and toying with her fan. One instant she looked up at him, and Donna Diana saw the look and the quick-caught heave of the snowy neck.

"I do not know what it is," she said to herself, "but it is certainly love of some kind." She moved towards them, steering her little diplomat through the sea of silk and satin, jewels and lace.

"How do you do, Mademoiselle Carnethy?" she said, in a voice that was meant to be kind, and was at least very civil.

Leonora stood somewhat in awe of the Vicomtesse de Charleroi, who was so stately and beautiful and cold. But she was very much pleased at the mark of attention. It was an approval, and an approval of the most public kind. The few words they exchanged were therefore all that could be desired. The vicomtesse nodded, smiled, nodded again, and sailed away in the easy swinging cadence of the waltz. Marcantonio looked gratefully after her. The air was warm and soft, and the light fluff from the linen carpet hung like a summer haze over the people, and the hundreds of candles, and the masses of flowers.

Marcantonio was silent. Something in the air told him that the time had come for him to speak,—something in Miss Carnethy's look told him plainly enough, he thought, that he was not to speak in vain. The last notes of the waltz chased each other away and died, and the people fell to walking about and talking. Marcantonio gave Leonora his arm, and the pair moved off with the stream, and on through the great rooms till they reached an apartment less crowded than the rest, and sat down near a doorway.

The young man did not lack courage, and he was honestly in love with Leonora. He felt little hesitation about speaking, and only wished to put the question as frankly and as courteously as might be. As for her, she was obliged to acknowledge that she was agitated, although she had said to herself a hundred times that she would be as calm as though she were talking about the weather. But now that the supreme moment had come, a strange beating rose in her breast, and her face was as white as her throat. She looked obstinately before her, seeing nothing, and striving to appear to the world as though nothing were happening. Marcantonio sat by her side, and glanced quickly at her two or three times, with a very slight feeling of uncertainty as to the result of his wooing,—very slight, but enough to make waiting impossible, where the stake was so high.

"Mademoiselle," he said, in low and earnest tones, "I have the permission of monsieur your father, and of madame your mother, to address you upon a subject which very closely concerns my happiness. Mademoiselle, will you be my wife?"

He sat leaning a little towards her, his hands folded together, and his face illuminated for a moment with intense love and anxiety. But Miss Carnethy did not see the look, and only heard the formal proposition his words conveyed. She saw a man standing in the door near them; she knew him—a Mr. Batiscombe, an English man of letters—and she wondered a little whether he would have used the same phrases in asking a woman to marry him,—whether all men would speak alike in such a case.

She had looked forward to this scene—more than once. Again the figure of the ideal lover of her dreams came to her, and seemed to pour out strong speech of love. Again she involuntarily drew a comparison in her mind between Marcantonio and some one, something she could not define. On a sudden all the honesty of her conscience sprang up and showed her what she really felt.

A thousand times she had said to herself that she would never marry a man she did not love; and for once that she had said it to herself, she had said it ten times over to her friends, feeling that she was inculcating a good and serviceable lesson. And now her conscience told her that she did not love Marcantonio,—at least not truly, certainly not as much as she would have liked to love. Then she remembered what she had thought that afternoon. How was it possible that she could have thought of him for a moment as her husband, if she did not love him,—especially with her high standard about such things? Oh, that high standard! With a quick transition of thought she made up her mind; but there was a strange little feeling of pain in her, such as the prince might have felt in the fairy tale when the ring pricked him. Nevertheless, her mind was made up.

"Yes," she said very suddenly, turning so that she could almost see his eyes, but not quite, for she instinctively dreaded to look him in the face; "yes, I will be your wife."

"Merci, mademoiselle," he said. The room was nearly empty at the moment, and Marcantonio took her passive hand and touched her fingers with his lips, being quite sure that no one was looking. But the man who stood at the door saw it.

"Such a good match, you know!" said some people, who had no prejudices.

"Such a special grace!" said the resident Anglo-American Catholics; "he is quite sure to convert her!"

"Such a special grace!" exclaimed the resident Anglo-American Protestants; "she is quite sure to lead him back!"

"Il faut toujours se mÉfier des saints," remarked Marcantonio's uncle, concerning his nephew.

"Never trust red-haired women," said the man who had stood at the door.

The engagement made a sensation in Rome, a consummation very easily attained, and very little to be desired. In places where the intercourse between young marriageable men and young marriageable women is so constrained as it is in modern Europe, a man's inclinations do not escape comment, and a very small seed of truth grows, beneath the magic incantations of society tea parties, to a very large bush of gossip. Nevertheless these good people are always astonished when their prophecies are fulfilled, and the bush bears fruit instead of vanishing into emptiness; which shows that there is some capacity left in them for distinguishing truth and untruth. Marcantonio's marriage had long been a subject in every way to the taste of the chatterers, and though Madame de Charleroi had accused her brother of hastiness, for lack of a better reproach, it was nearly a year since his admiration for Miss Carnethy had been first noticed. During that time every particular of her parentage and fortune had been carefully sought after, especially by those who had the least interest in the matter; and the universal verdict had been that the Marchese Carantoni might, could, should, and probably would, marry Miss Leonora Carnethy. And now that the engagement was out, society grunted as a pig may when among the crab-oaks of PÉrigord he has discovered a particularly fat and unctuous truffle.

Probably the happiest person was Marcantonio himself. He was an honest, whole-souled man, and in his eyes Leonora was altogether the most beautiful, the most accomplished, and the most charming woman in the world. That he expressed himself with so much self-control and propriety when he asked her to marry him was wholly due to the manner of his education and training in the social proprieties. That a man should use any language warmer or less guarded than that of absolutely respectful and distant courtesy toward the lady he intended to make his wife was not conceivable to him. In the privacy of his own rooms he worshipped and adored her with all his might and main, but when he addressed her in person it was as a subject addresses his sovereign; a tone of respectful and submissive reverence and obedience pervaded his actions and his words. He would have pleased a woman who loved sovereignty, better than a woman who dreamed of a sovereign love.

But she was never out of his thoughts, and if he wooed her humbly, he anticipated some submission on her part after marriage. He had no idea of always allowing her mind to wander in the strange channels it seemed to prefer. He thought such an intelligence capable of better things, and he determined, half unconsciously at first, and as a matter of course, that Miss Carnethy, the philosopher, should be known before long as the Marchesa Carantoni, the Catholic. Gradually the idea grew upon him, until he saw it as the grand object of his life, the great good deed he was to do. His love consented to it, and was purified and beautified to him in the thought that by it he should lead a great soul like hers to truth and light. He was perfectly in earnest, as he always was in matters of importance; for of all nations and peoples Italians have been most accused of frivolity, heartlessness, and inconstancy, and of all races they perhaps deserve the accusation least. They are the least imaginative people on earth, apart from the creative arts, and the most simple and earnest men in the matter of love. Northern races hate Italians, and they fasten triumphantly on that unlucky Latin sinner who falls first in their way as the prototype of his nation, and as the butt of their own prejudice. In the eyes of most northern people all Italians are liars; just as a typical Frenchman calls England "perfide Albion," and all Englishmen traitors and thieves. Who shall decide when such doctors disagree? And is it not a proverb that there is honour among thieves?

Marcantonio never spoke of these ideas of his to his friends when they congratulated him on his engagement. He only looked supremely happy, and told every one that he was, which was quite true. But his sister was to him a great difficulty, for she evidently was disappointed and displeased. He debated within himself how he should appease her, and he determined to lay before her his views about Leonora's future. To that intent he visited her in the boudoir, where they had so often talked before the engagement.

Madame de Charleroi received him as usual, but there was a look in her eyes that he was not accustomed to see there,—an expression of protest, just inclining to coldness, which had the effect of rousing his instinct of opposition. With his other friends he had found no occasion for being combative, and his old manner had sufficed; but with his sister he found himself involuntarily preparing for war, though his intentions were in reality pacific enough. Marcantonio was very young, in spite of his nine and twenty years. His manner now, as he met his sister, was a trifle more formal than usual, and he bent his brows and pulled his black moustache as he sat down.

"Carissima Diana," he began, "I must speak with you about my marriage, and many things."

"Yes,—what is it?" asked his sister, calmly, as she turned a piece of tapestry on her knee to finish the end of a needleful of silk. Marcantonio had somehow expected her to say something that he could take hold of and oppose. Her bland question confused him.

"You are not pleased," he began awkwardly.

"What would you have?" she asked, still busy with her work. "I am sure I told you what I thought about it long ago."

"I want you to change your mind," said Marcantonio, delighted at the first show of opposition. Madame de Charleroi raised her eyebrows, gave a little sigh of annoyance, and turned towards him.

"I will always treat your wife with the highest consideration," she said, as though that settled the matter and she wished to drop the subject. But her brother was not satisfied.

"I wish you to love her, Diana; I wish you to treat her as your sister."

Donna Diana was silent, and Marcantonio shifted his position uneasily, for he did not know exactly what to do, and he saw that he was failing in his mission. But in a moment his heart guided him. He went and sat beside her, and laid his hand on hers.

"We cannot quarrel, dear," he said. "But will you love her if I make her like you—if I make her thoughts as beautiful as yours?"

Donna Diana's face softened as she turned to him and affectionately pressed his hand.

"I will try to love her for your sake, dear boy," she answered gently; and he kissed her fingers in thanks.

"Dear Diana," he said, "you are so good! But you know she is really not at all like what you fancy her. She is full of heart, and so wonderfully delicate and lovely,—and so marvellously intelligent. There is nothing she does not know. She has read all the philosophies"—

"Yes, I know she has," interrupted his sister, as though deprecating the discussion of Miss Carnethy's wisdom.

"But not as you think," he protested, catching the meaning of her tone. "She has read them all, but she will take what is best from each, and I am quite sure she will be a good Catholic before long."

"I really hope so," said Donna Diana seriously.

"Not that I should love her any the less if she were not," continued Marcantonio, who was loth to feel that there could be any condition to his love. "I should love her just as much if she were a Chinese,—just as much, I am sure. But of course it would be much better."

"Of course," assented Diana, smiling a little at his enthusiasm.

Somehow the peace was made,—it is so easy to make peace when each can trust the other, and knows it! Just as Madame de Charleroi had determined to say something pleasant on the evening when her brother offered himself to Leonora, so now she made up her mind to stand by Marcantonio, and to help him in his married life by being as sympathetic and as kind as possible.

In due time Marcantonio obtained the permission of the Church to unite himself with his Protestant wife, and after a great many formalities the wedding took place in the late spring, after Easter.

Weddings are tiresome things to talk about, and even the principal persons concerned in them always wish them over as soon as possible. What can be more trying for a young girl than to be set up to be stared at by the hour, be-feathered and be-rigged in a multiplicity of ornaments, made flimsy with tulle and lace, and ghastly with the accumulation of white things, when she is pale enough already with the acute fever of an exceedingly complicated state of mind? Or how can a man possibly enjoy being envied, hated, loved, despised, and considered a fool, by his rivals, his bride, the woman he has not married, and his bachelor friends,—all in a breath? It is absurd to suppose that any one with an intelligence above that of the average peacock can enjoy playing a leading part in a matrimonial parade.

Marcantonio Carantoni and Leonora Carnethy were married, and one of her intimate friends shed a tear as she observed how extremely empty a form it was. But the other looked a little pale, and said she was quite sure she could have chosen someone "better than that."