By degrees Sangiorgio had reached Donna Angelica's side, where, after arriving, he whispered 'Good-evening.'
'Good-evening,' she murmured, with that depth of expression quite individual to herself. And she turned to him, asking him whether her husband had come, talking with half-closed lips, while he cast such enamored and admiring glances at her that a slight blush tinged her cheeks. The Queen was speaking in French to the French Ambassadress, a spare, ascetic woman with a long face; yonder the King was conversing with Donna Luigia Catalani, attired in bronze, a strange blue feather in her blonde locks; the vivacious, witty Sicilian was smiling maliciously. A new quadrille was beginning.
'You are not dancing,' observed Sangiorgio.
'No, I am not; the Government does not dance this time,' she replied calmly. 'Later on, if you like, we will take a turn.'
'Later on?'
'Yes, later on.'
He did not understand at first. He had been too unobservant, his thoughts all centred on her he loved; he had been unwitting of the scene of feverish female ambition all round him. Yet he saw that something of supreme importance was happening in this essentially feminine festive affair; he saw that these women were completely given over to some idea which made them forget even their wish to look beautiful. The ballroom was now alive with dancers, and the rest of the men were moving towards the sitting, smoking, and refreshment rooms.
On the right side of the ballroom the throng of expectant women was still increasing; they were crowded together closer than ever, and, while they still hoped their turn was coming, had no inclination to dance, since their hearts and minds were over in that corner of the room.
The Queen, sitting in the recess of a balcony, with only her train and the lock of her necklace showing, was conversing with Donna Lidia, the Prime Minister's wife, a hearty, amiable little woman, who only left her quiet family home on the occasion of official routs.
'That is Donna Lidia—the Queen is talking to Donna Lidia!' the women and those of the girls who were well informed were whispering to each other. The interview had thus far lasted five minutes; the eyes of all the waiting ladies were, by an irresistible, magnetic force, drawn upon Donna Lidia and her Queen, whose movements were subject to general speculation: would she go to the right or the left when she got up to leave the alcove? In the ballroom the couples who had taken part in the quadrille were now promenading; engagements were being made for the polka; the young men were writing with pencils on the girls' programmes; the ladies who were strangers, or elderly, middle-aged, or old, sat on the last row of the red velvet benches with the formal air of people voluntarily bored, and were laden with jewels and splendid laces, and wore feathers in their hair. The women who had been honoured by a few words from royalty went about flushed and smiling and satisfied, with a happy light in their eyes, repeating to one another the gracious remarks that had been made to them; and they cared nothing for anything else, paid no heed to others who were still waiting with ill-concealed impatience. The King was talking to the large, handsome wife of Italy's prime patriot, a worthy lady, with dark skin and honest eyes, dressed all in blue.