The old man spoke with singular exaltation of spirit. His faded visage was transfigured by a noble, intellectual passion. Suddenly the comical and familiar side of the man came uppermost again. His long lips protruded in a ludicrous pout and, threateningly shaking his knotted finger at one of the statues, a Diana with a quiver, whose countenance, white in some parts and yellow in others, disclosed the fact that it had been restored, he added:-- "And the hussies are not even intact!--They are only patched-up copies.--Just look at this one.--Ah, you baggage, you should not keep that nose if it were not too much trouble to knock it off!--Ah!" he continued, as a servant opened the double door at the end of the gallery, "a thoroughbred needs no spur--Don Fortunato is ready." Approaching Andryana Bonnacorsi, he said:-- "Will Madame la marchesa do me the honor of accepting my arm to lead her to the altar? My age gives me the right to play the rôle of father. And if I cannot walk quickly enough you must excuse me; the weight of years is the heaviest man ever has to carry.--And don't be alarmed," added the good old man in a whisper, as he felt the arm of his companion tremble. "I have studied your Corancez very deeply for several days. He is an excellent and good fellow." "Well," said Corancez to Madame de Carlsberg, offering her his arm, while Florence Marsh took Hautefeuille's, "are you still as sceptical as you were about chiromancy and the line of fate? Is it simply a chance that I should have the Baroness Ely leaning on my arm in my wedding procession? And is it merely hazard that has provided me with an original like our host to amuse you during the wearisome affair?" "It is not wearisome," replied the Baroness, laughing. "All the same, you are lucky in marrying Andryana; she is looking so beautiful to-day, and she loves you so much!--As to the Prince, you are right; he is unique. It is pleasant to find such enthusiasm in a man of his age.--When Italians are taken up with an idea they are infatuated with it passionately, devotedly, as they are with a woman.--They have rebuilt their country with the help of that very quality." During these few minutes Miss Marsh was talking to Hautefeuille. "You cannot understand that feeling," she was saying, "for you belong to an old country. But I come from a town that is very little older than myself, and it is an ecstasy to visit a palace like this where everything is eloquent of a long past." "Alas, Miss Marsh," replied Hautefeuille, "if there is anything more painful than living in a new country, it is living in one that wants to become new at any price when it is filled to overflowing with relics of the past, of a glorious past,--a country where every one is making desperate efforts to destroy everything.--France has had that mania for about a hundred years."