'Ah, you had better take care! Watch that figure and use plenty of exorcisms—But there, I am prophesying again! Really, it seems a weakness of mine.'
'Here we are at the station.'
They both laughed, and all three entered the little station to wait for the train, which was due in a few minutes. Fernandino a sickly-looking boy of twelve, was carrying a bouquet which he was to present to Donna Maria. Andrea, put in excellent spirits by his little conversation with his cousin, took a tea-rose from the bouquet and stuck it in his button-hole, then cast a rapid glance over his light summer clothes and noticed with complaisance that his hands had become whiter and thinner since his illness. But he did it all without reflection, simply from an instinct of harmless vanity which had suddenly awakened in him.
'Here comes the train,' said Fernandino.
The Marchesa hurried forward to greet her friend, who was already leaning out of the carriage window waving her hand and nodding. Her head was enveloped in a large gray gauze veil which half covered her large black hat.
'Francesca! Francesca!' she cried with a little tremor of joy in her voice.
The sound of that voice made a singular impression on Andrea—it reminded him vaguely of a voice he knew—but whose?
Donna Maria left the carriage with a rapid and light step, and with a pretty grace raised her veil above her mouth to kiss her friend. Suddenly Andrea was struck by the profound charm of this slender, graceful, veiled woman of whose face he saw only the mouth and chin.
'Maria, let me present my cousin to you—Count Andrea Sperelli-Fieschi d'Ugenta.'
Andrea bowed. The lady's lips parted in a smile that was rendered mysterious from the rest of the face being concealed by the veil.