"And he had no idea that you were to stop in Florence?"
"No; he supposed I was to take the steamer at Naples for Marseilles. You need not be so scrupulous; everything is quite safe."
"And when shall I return the epistle?"
"When I ask for it," said Mrs. Lovell, laughing.
The next morning she went northward to Venice.
Two weeks later Miss Stowe formed one of the company at a reception, or, rather, a musical party. She looked quite unlike the "Margaret" of Fiesole as she sat on a small, faded purple satin sofa, listening, rather frowningly, to the rippling movement that follows the march in Beethoven's sonata, opus twenty-six; she had never liked that rippling movement, she did not pretend to like it now. Her frown, however, was slight—merely a little line between her dark eyebrows; it gave her the appearance of attention rather than of disapprobation. The "Margaret" of Fiesole had looked like an animated, almost merry, young girl; the "Miss Stowe" of the reception appeared older than she really was, and her face wore an expression of proud reserve, which, although veiled by all the conventional graciousness required by society, was not on that account any the less apparent. She was richly dressed; but the general effect of her attire was that of simplicity. She fanned herself slowly with a large fan, whose sticks were of carved amber, and the upper part of soft gray ostrich plumes, curled; closed or open, as she used it or as it lay beside her, this fan was an object of beauty. As the music ceased a lady came fluttering across the room, and, with a whispered "Permit me," introduced a gentleman, whose name, in the hum of released conversation, Miss Stowe did not hear.
"He understands everything about old pictures, and you know how ignorant I am!" said this lady, half closing her eyes, and shaking her ringleted head with an air of abnegation. "I have but one inspiration; there is room in me but for one. I bring him, therefore, to you, who have so many! We all know your love for the early masters—may I not say, the earliest?"
Madame Ferri was an American who had married a Florentine; she was now a little widow of fifty, with gray ringlets and emotions regarding music almost too ineffable to be expressed. I say "almost," because she did, after all, express them, as her friends knew. She was a useful person in Florence because she indefatigably knew everybody—the English and Americans as well as the Florentines; and she spent her time industriously at work mingling these elements, whether they would or no. No one thanked her for this especially, or remembered it after it was done; if republics are ungrateful, even more so is a society whose component parts are transient, coming and departing day by day. But Madame Ferri herself appreciated the importance of her social combinations if no one else did; and, like many another chemist, lived on content in the consciousness of it.
"I know very little about old pictures," said the stranger, with a slight smile, finding himself left alone beside Miss Stowe.
"And I—do not like them," she replied.