Later, when she thought over that first year of marriage, Regina divided it into many little chapters. Amongst them she attached importance to the chapter of her first visit to the Princess Makuline.

It took place on a warm, cloudy evening at the beginning of January. Antonio was missing, having been detained at the Department till nine, doing extra work; but Arduina and Regina waited in the Piazza dell' Indipendenza for Massimo, who was to escort them. The Piazza, almost deserted, was illumined by the pale gold rays of the veiled moon. The bare trees were scarce visible in the vaporous air, the small, motionless flames of the street lamps seemed far away. Regina, standing in the middle of the great square, was pleasantly conscious of silence, solitude, immensity. For the first time since she had been in Rome she caught herself admiring something.

"Come along!" said Massimo, arriving hurriedly, and brandishing a pair of new gloves; "three-fifty they cost me! Woe to Madame if she doesn't pay me with some hope!"

"I believe you'd be capable of marrying her," said Regina, with a gesture of disgust.

"She'd like it," said Arduina.

"Shut up! The point is—should I like it?" said the young man. "I'm not for sale."

Passing the Princess's little garden gate, Massimo said, "This is the entrance for Madame's lovers!"

But they walked on and rang at the hall door of the villa, or rather of the villas, for there were two; small but handsome houses, joined by an aËrial terrace or hanging garden.

"Like two little brothers holding each other's hands," said Regina, with a sigh.

A servant in plain clothes opened the polished door, and disclosed two great wolves, apparently alive, lying in ambush on the red rugs of the entrance hall.

The rooms were much overheated. Thick carpets, skins of bears spread before large low divans, themselves covered with furs, exhaled what seemed the hot breath of wild beasts sleeping in the sun—an atmosphere wild, voluptuous, noxious. Huge waving branches of red-berried wild plants rose from tall metal vases. The Princess, richly but clumsily dressed in black velvet and white lace, was discoursing in French to two elderly ladies, telling them the adventures of her aunt, wife of the man who had known Georges Sand.

"At that time," she was saying, "my aunt was the best dressed woman in Paris. Georges Sand described one of her costumes in the Marquis de Villemer...."

Beyond the two elderly ladies, an old gentleman, shaven and bald, his head shining like a bowl of pink china, lolled in an arm-chair and listened sleepily.

Marianna, in a low pink dress, ran to the new-comers with her little rat-like steps, and surveyed Regina inquisitively.

"You look very well, Madame," she said; "is there no news?"

"What news do you expect?" asked Regina.

Marianna giggled, her little eyes shining unnaturally. Regina could not resist the suspicion that the rat was excited with wine, and she felt a resurgence of the curious physical disgust with which the Princess and this girl inspired her.

Madame at first paid scant attention to the Venutellis. Other guests were arriving, the greater number elderly foreign ladies in dresses of questionable freshness and fashion. Arduina soon got into conversation with an unattractive gentleman whose round eyes and flat nose surmounted an exaggerated jowl. Massimo followed in the wake of Marianna, who came and went, running about, frisking and shrieking. Regina was stranded between a stout lady who made a few observations without looking at her, and the bald old gentleman who said nothing at all. She soon grew bored, finding herself neglected and forgotten, lost among all these fat superannuated people, these old silk gowns which had outlived their rustle. How tedious! Was this the world of the rich, the enchanted realm for which she had pined?

"Regina shall not be seen here again," she told herself.

Presently she saw Arduina smiling and beckoning to her from the distance; but just then the Princess came over, and put her small refulgent hand in Regina's with an affectionate and familiar gesture.

"Won't you come and take a cup of tea?" she said.

Regina started to her feet overwhelmed by so much attention.

"How is your husband?" said the Princess, leading her to the supper-room.

"Very well, thank you," said Regina, in a low voice; "he hasn't been able to come to-night because——"

"Beg pardon?" said the Princess.

All the elderly ladies and gentlemen followed the hostess, and seated themselves round the room, in which a sumptuous table was laid. Marianna ran hither and thither, distributing the tea.

"Could you help?" she asked, passing Regina; "you seem like a girl. Come with me."

Regina followed her to the table, but did not know what to do; she upset a jug and blushed painfully.

"Here!" said Marianna, giving her a plate, "take that to the man like a dog."

"Which man? Speak low!"

"The man beside your sister-in-law. He's an author."

Regina crossed the room shyly, carrying the plate, and imagining every one was looking at her. There was consolation in the thought that she was about to offer a slice of tart to an author.

"Oh, Signorina!" he exclaimed, with a deprecating bow.

"Signora, if you please!" said Arduina, "she's my sister-in-law."

"My compliments and my condolences," said the man, insolently; he rolled his great eyes round the room and added, "In this company you seem a child."

"Why condolences?" asked Arduina.

"Because she's your sister-in-law," replied he.

Regina perceived that the author was very impudent, and she retreated to the table. Not finding Marianna she timidly possessed herself of another plate and took it to Massimo, who, also neglected and forgotten, was standing near the door.

"Oh, you're doing hostess, are you?" he said. "Look here! bring me a glass of that wine in the tall, gold-necked bottle at the corner of the table. Drink some yourself."

Regina went for it, but found the Princess herself pouring wine at that moment from the bottle with the golden neck.

"Massimo would like a glass of that," she murmured ingenuously.

"Beg pardon?" said the Princess, who fortunately had not heard.

Regina, however, found a wine-glass ready filled, and carried it to her brother-in-law; exquisite bouquet rose from the glass as perfume from a flower.

"It's port, you know," said Massimo, with genuine gratitude; "thanks, little sister-in-law! You're my salvation! 'Tis the wine of the modern gods."

"You are facetious to-night."

"Hush! I'm bored to death. Let's go. We'll leave Arduina. Who's that baboon-faced person she's got hold of?"

"That's an author."

"Connais pas," said the other, eating and drinking. "What a rabble! No one but rabble."

"Just so," said Regina, "and we belong to it."

"On the contrary, we'll snap our fingers at it. No! we are young and may some day be rich. Those folk are rich, but they'll never be young, my dear!"

"Take care! I think you are right though."

"Then bring me another glass of port!" said Massimo, imploringly.

"Certainly not!"

The old ladies and gentlemen, mildly excited by the wines and the tea, raised their voices, moved about, clustered in knots and circles. In the confusion Regina again found herself beside the hostess.

"But you've had positively nothing!" said Madame; "come with me. Have a glass of port? How's your husband?"

"The second time!" thought Regina; and she shouted, "Very well indeed, thank you."

"Have you moved yet? How do you like your house? Come, drink this! Have some sweets? The pastry's pretty good to-day. Oh, Monsieur Massimo! won't you have another cup of tea? No? A glass of port, then? Tell me, are you also at the Treasury?"

"No, Madame; in the War Office."

Marianna no sooner observed that the Princess was talking to the Venutellis than she thrust her restless face behind Regina's shoulder; and it struck the latter that this girl watched her patroness over much.

"I've a bothersome affair on hand," said Madame, slowly; "some money due in Milan which I want paid to me in Rome. I'm told I must have a warrant from the Treasury, Monsieur Antonio must come and speak to me to-morrow."

"I'll tell him the moment I get in," cried Regina.

Marianna said something in Russian, turning to Madame with an air almost of command. The Princess replied with her usual calm, but quickly afterwards she moved away.

"Now I must pay for the help you gave me," said Marianna to Regina, pouring out a glass of a white liqueur. "Drink this."

"No, thanks."

"It's vodka. The Russian ladies get tipsy with this. See how I drink it! I'm half tipsy already," she went on, raising the glass and looking through it; "I don't mind! It has the opposite effect on me to what it has on every one else. After drinking, I no longer speak the truth."

"I don't observe it," said Massimo, dryly. "So this is vodka, is it? It's nasty."

"Oh, I've had none to speak of to-day!" said Marianna. She laughed and sipped; then held the glass to Regina's lips and made her drink too.

"Now we'll go and interrupt the idyll of the dog and the cat," said Marianna, leading the way to the next room where Arduina and the author were still tÊte-À-tÊte under the branches of the red-berried plant.

Regina and Marianna sat down opposite to them on a divan of furs, and Massimo remained standing. In the next room one of the old ladies was playing "Se a te, O cara!"

Regina now felt an inexplicable content; the gentle yet impassioned music, the warmth of the divan whose soft furriness suggested a pussy cat to be stroked; the indefinable perfume with which the hot air was charged, the vodka, too, which still pulsed in her throat—all gave her the initial feelings of a pleasant intoxication. Arduina also seemed excited. She spoke loud, in the tones which Regina had noted in the flirtatious cousin, Claretta. She seemed no longer to recognise her relations.

"What's the matter with the silly thing?" Regina asked herself, and Marianna must have guessed her thought, for she said slyly, "They're love-making."

Regina laughed unthinkingly. Then suddenly she felt shocked.

"Is it possible!" she murmured.

"Anything is possible," said the rat. "You are such a child as yet; but in time you'll see—anything is possible."