"The lady is fair," acknowledged Messer Romano, "but too unapproachable for me!" Startled, Francesco saw, or fancied he saw, a complacent smile flit across the countenance of Stefano Maconi. "What thinks Messer Francesco of her beauty?" asked Violetta. "I believe that each new age sees men and women fairer than the last." "I think, that cannot be," said the Countess Petronella, naively. "Was never woman so fair as Madama Elena of Troy, and she lived before the coming of our Saviour." "I agree with Madonna Violetta," said Francesco dreamily. "Gazing at Madonna Ilaria I think there is come into the world something strange and new, revealed to us to our joy and our undoing!" The sun had set. The boatmen were singing together. "Non senti mai Achillé, Per Pulisena bella, Le cocenti favillé Quant' io senti per quella. "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. "Allow me," said Stefano Maconi, "to be responsible for the proposed surprise. It shall, with your pleasure, take the form of a Festa in the groves of Circé!" "It will be fair weather to-morrow!" said Violetta. "We shall all be there!" After they had departed Francesco passed swiftly to and fro along the terrace.