The banqueting hall was a riot of color. On its columns of polished marble, veined in green and rose, light played in sliding gleams from great lamps of wrought bronze, hung by chains around the dome and between the pillars. The floor of glowing mosaic was overlaid with rugs of fantastic color and with tawny skins of beasts. The walls were wide panels of mosaics, set in stucco, vivid with red and blue, green and azure, picturing scenes of hunting and carousal. Perfumes burned in silver jars, set on pedestals of black marble along the walls, sending forth faint spirals of smoke into the heated air. The long table, lined on either side with men and women, was directly beneath the dome. Looking down upon it, Francesco saw a confusion of gold and silver dishes with the ruby glow of Samian plates, and cups gleaming among strewn leaves and blossoms. The garments of the guests were as a fringe of color about the table's edge, purple, saffron and gold, crimson, green and white. The central figure at the board was Ilaria. She sat between Stefano Maconi and another noble. At times her gaiety bordered on delirium, though her smiling face, proudly upheld as though she scorned to give way before the eyes upon her, was white, but her lips were as scarlet as the flowers she wore. She had changed her attire since she had left him. A Persian gauze, filmy as mist, enveloped her sylph-like form, surmounted by a head-dress of gold, in which two poppies flamed upon either temple. Never had she looked more beautiful, not even at the parting-feast at Avellino, when alone she had entered the dusky dining-hall and had taken her seat apart from him. Then, as now, she had worn the red rose; the other was long wilted, forgotten perchance. The flowers she wore were of a deep, intense color, almost like blood upon the stainless skin of her exposed throat. She had not even informed him of the evening's festivities. Was it to save him pain, in not desiring his presence,--was it in order not to subject him to the taunts and insults of the Neapolitans? Francesco noted the smile of her parted lips; he noted the vivaciousness with which she received the adoration of her guests. Yet, while he looked on from the heights of his dreary solitude, could he have seen Ilaria's eyes, they would have taught him different, for they never participated in the smile of her lips. Something like jealousy gripped him at last, he clenched his teeth and the scene below him swam in a blood-red mist.