"Udendo sua favella
Angelica é venozza,
Parlar si amorosa
In su la fresca erbetta."
"The beauty of this coast," said Francesco, speaking low, "is as the beauty of woman. It transcends all I have imagined, yet is it ever alien. I have felt it in Rome, but not so strongly. In Umbria, in Tuscany all is more pure, more distant, yet more clear. The eye is drawn afar to where earth meets sky; here it seeks to draw all to itself. It is a beauty unhallowed: The triumph of the Pagan World!"
"Is there a city in Italy more Catholic than Naples?" protested Violetta, while the others joined in a chorus of protestation.
"Where in Europe shall you find more priests?" asked Stefano Maconi, shrugging his shoulders. "Where shall you find more churches?"
Francesco had been musing. Now the spirit of contradiction was upon him.
"Even in your churches," he said suddenly, turning to Camilla, "I find something strange. They are sumptuous indeed; yet there steals over me a fearsome feeling, as if the worship were given not to the Deity that is, but to deities long dead,—or worse than dead!"
A slight shudder ran over one or two of the hearers; the boatmen were singing softly.
The stars were out, the boat was nearing the shore. And still the boatmen were singing, as the moon shed her spectral light over the crooning, murmuring waves.
"We are all agreed, are we not, that the Countess Ilaria Frangipani is the fairest?" asked Camilla, as they prepared to land.