"A sudden pain—a spasm in my side," gasped Gina. "It is over now."
"Is he not an attractive man?" whispered another of the ladies in Gina's ear.
"He?"
"The Count di Visinara: you never saw him before. They are well matched for beauty, he and the Lady Adelaide."
"Pray attend to your work, and let this gossiping cease," exclaimed Lucrezia, angrily.
Giovanni and his wife remained at the window, with their backs towards the damsels. She suffered her hand to remain in his—they could not see that—and conversed with him in a confidential tone. Then she began chattering to him of her new attendant, telling how lovely she was, when a servant entered and announced the mid-day meal.
"Now you shall see my favorite," she exclaimed, as he took her hand to conduct her to the banquet-hall. "I will stop as I pass them, to look at their work, and you shall tell me if you do not think her very beautiful."
"Scarcely, Adelaide, when beside you."
"She is about my age," ran on Adelaide, whose spirits were raised to exuberance. But it had never entered the mind of that haughty lady to imagine the possibility of the Lord of Visinara, her husband, looking upon an attendant of hers with an eye of real admiration; or she might not have discussed their personal merits.
"How do you get on with the work, Lucrezia?" demanded the Lady Adelaide, stopping close to her attendants.