CHAPTER I
"IN TIME!"
"In time!" In a room of the Academy, La Foscarina had stopped before La Vecchia, by Francesco Torbido—that wrinkled, toothless, flaccid, yellow old woman, who could no longer either smile or weep, that human ruin worse than decay, that species of earthly Parca, who, instead of spindle, thread, or scissors, held in her hand a card bearing that significant warning.
"In time!" she said again, when she and her companion were once more in the open air. She said it to break the pensive silence, during which she had felt her heart sink, like a stone cast into dark waters. She spoke again suddenly:
"Stelio, do you know that closed house in the Calle Gambara?"
"No—which house?"
"The house of the Countess of Glanegg."
"No, I don't know it."
"Do you not know the story of the beautiful Austrian?"
"No, Fosca. Tell it to me."
"Will you go with me as far as the Calle Gambara; it is only a short distance?"