"How old are you?"----"Eighteen years."
"You have left a lover behind in Albano, or perhaps more than one?"
She shook her head.
"How you talk!" interrupted the old woman, hastily. "'Tis a good girl, I tell you, and as innocent as the Madonna. Should I have got so fond of her else?"
"Well, well! If I believe it, I believe her face, and not yours, mother. Can she dance? The gentleman here is a stranger, and I should like him to learn what a real salterello is like."
Theodore said a few words--"that it would be a great favour." The old woman beckoned to the hostess; Caterina arose silently. Soon the nearest tables were pushed aside, to leave a small space clear, and Lalla brought the tambourine. Whilst the old woman seated herself in a corner with it, the other guests crowded round one after the other, and the boy who had been serving them prepared himself for his part in the dance, Bianchi whispered in his friend's ear: "Look at that form, and the delicacy of the hands and feet, and how she stands there, a perfect figure! such as I never saw before--blameless even to the darling little ears--and as yet hardly knowing herself! To be obliged to let Checo dance with her! I understood it pretty well once. But now, I conjure you, let your eyes do their best. A miracle will be performed."
Theodore needed not the prompting. He leaned against a table, and turned not his eyes from Caterina. At the first vehement notes of the tambourine the girl began the dance; Lalla stood near he old woman and clattered the castanets. Señor Luigi, the singer, sat immovable behind his table, and began to hum an air with the first notes. Soon he sang the song and the words cheerily out. The words, which Theodore could not understand, the feverish restlessness of the monotoned instruments, and above all, the strange witchery of the dancing girl, by degrees so confused his ideas, that he felt as if he had been gazing into a new and unknown world. All that he had known, loved, possessed, retreated into a vacuous gloom, which deprived it of all colouring; forms, thoughts, wishes, and hopes whirled through his soul to the dull notes of the tambourine, as to a great review. He cast them all aside. It was as though a voice called within him, "They are all worthless and dead. Here alone is life and bliss."
When the dance ceased he awoke from his dream, and looked wildly around. He seized his hat. "Are you going? Already? Now?" asked Bianchi, astonished. "I see that you don't enjoy yourself amongst my friends here."
"You mistake me," answered Theodore, looking gloomily before him. "How gladly would I remain. How gladly--but I have given a promise. I must pay a visit--we shall see each other to-morrow, Bianchi."
"Oh!" murmured Bianchi. "Pity, pity! how you will amuse yourselves, you and the others! Pity, pity!"