“No, no; I do not mean the picture. I am thinking of La Toscana. Her voice was really superb; and to lose it entirely...!” She waved a sympathetic hand.
Abbott was about to rise up in vigorous protest. But fate itself chose to rebuke Flora. From the window came—“Sai cos’ ebbe cuore!”—sung as only Nora could sing it.
The ferrule of Flora Desimone’s parasol bit deeply into the clover-turf.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BALL AT THE VILLA
“Do you know the Duchessa?” asked Flora Desimone.
“Yes.” It was three o’clock the same afternoon. The duke sat with his wife under the vine-clad trattoria on the quay. Between his knees he held his Panama hat, which was filled with ripe hazelnuts. He cracked them vigorously with his strong white teeth and filliped the broken shells into the lake, where a frantic little fish called agoni darted in and about the slowly sinking particles. “Why?” The duke was not any grayer than he had been four or five months previous, but the characteristic expression of his features had undergone a change. He looked less Jovian than Job-like.
“I want you to get an invitation to her ball at the Villa Rosa to-night.”