Beside him were an inkstand, a pen, telegraph-blanks, notepaper, and he would write answers then and there, after pushing his plate away from him. The newspapers he handed to his secretary, having first marked certain places with a red pencil; the secretary read the marked passages with the placidity of an old diplomat. In the meantime Sangiorgio was vainly listening for some feminine sound, vainly keeping on the alert for the least incident: not a maid came through, not a bell rang; nothing feminine happened; not a flower was wanted, not a candlestick was brought; there was no bustle of servants; nothing occurred—nothing whatever.
In the privacy of her apartment Donna Angelica was in the throes of the romantic and feverish excitement of a woman dressing for a ball; and the great mystery of beauty adorning itself—amid lustre-imparting, perfumed liquids, loose hair, scattered flowers, billowy gauze, sparkling jewels, smooth silks, soft furs—modern woman's great mystery of Isis, was being accomplished as in a tabernacle.
An evermore consuming desire to know or hear something assailed Sangiorgio in the dining-room during all the political discussion and writing; a desire caused by the vacant place at the table where the chair stood; a desire springing from the red lilies—the fiery St. Louis lilies—which seemed to combine purity and the heat of passion. If only she would come out for a moment, to greet her husband, to greet her guest! If she would but show herself, radiant in her youth and beauty! Each time a door opened, as the evening wore on, Sangiorgio started, shutting his eyes, seeming to see her appear in the splendour of her loveliness and her dress. But other telegrams, messages, and letters arrived; in one instance Don Silvio drew a cipher-book from his pocket to translate a political despatch. Where could Donna Angelica be? In what floods of perfume had she vanished?
The time went by, and there was no sign of anything in the house reminiscent of ballroom gaiety; the house kept its busy atmosphere; the slamming of doors continued, the loud or low discussions, the coming and going of written and printed papers. It was like a public square, a stock exchange, a political institution, a camping-ground for all manner of intrigue, deceit, and turmoil. Perhaps in the sanctuary within, which harboured Donna Angelica's youth and beauty, there were signs of the female excitement that precedes a ball, and to which is always due a ravishing confusion of scattered linen, silk stockings hanging out of open drawers, unstoppered vials, corsets straggling over the floor. But of such feminine disarray, of such intoxicating disorder, so fascinating to a husband or a lover, no indication passed outside her apartment. Through the three or four doors separating him from the woman he loved Francesco Sangiorgio felt this new charm, which was quite earthly, and which captivated him in a new way, addressing itself to his instincts of sex. He felt the contrast between the weariness, the emptiness of Don Silvio's tumultuous life, and the poetical delicacy of that feminine toilet, and all the perturbation of heart and senses instilled by everything that comes into contact with a woman's body.
At last, at ten o'clock, doors were opened and shut, and subdued voices heard; and Sangiorgio, choked by his one wish, shut his eyes to avoid the blinding spectacle of Donna Angelica's beauty. But no one appeared; a dull rumble of wheels was audible in the courtyard, and then in the Piazza dell' Apollinare.
'Donna Angelica has gone to the Quirinal,' said Don Silvio calmly, opening the Riforma, which had just been brought in. 'Shall you not be going, too, Sangiorgio?'
'Later on,' feebly answered Sangiorgio, who had turned deadly pale.
* * * * *
In the white electric light illuminating the grand staircase of the Quirinal the women were slowly making their way upward, touching the carpet only with the toes of their satin slippers. And with sweeping trains, with rich, soft, warm, white cloaks over their nude shoulders, with heads begemmed, befeathered, or beflowered, in their ascent they cast stray glances at the two great green shrubs, at the Muses among the broad, red-veined leaves, at the palms that stood darkly against the white stucco of the walls. The women went up slowly, so as not to become ruffled, and in order that the even pallor or the florid pink of their cheeks might not be disturbed. After all their nervous excitement, the calm self-possession of women determined to look handsome asserted itself. It was enough to see how composedly, in the great, chilly, tapestried place transformed into a cloak-room, they untied their bows, and undid their hoods or their cloaks, allowing them to slip gently from their shoulders, maintaining their likeness to beautiful, self-moving statues. It was enough to see the phlegmatic way in which they smoothed out the flexible Swedish gloves over their arms, while husband, brother, or father was impatiently waiting to escort an unconcerned charmer, who was quietly readjusting a shoulder-sleeve that had become displaced.