In the glare of those countless lights she appeared to Michel an entirely different woman from her he had seen in the grotto an hour earlier, when the peculiar light or his own imagination had made her appear a little terrifying to him. Now her indifference was calm rather than depressed, habitual rather than forced. She had recovered just enough animation to vanquish the heart and leave the passions undisturbed. XIV BARBAGALLO If Michel could have removed his eyes from the object of his contemplation, he would have seen his father playing a flageolet in the orchestra a few steps away. Pier-Angelo had a passion for art in any form in which he could assimilate it. He loved and understood music, and played several instruments by instinct in almost perfect tone and time. Having attended to several details of the fête which had been placed under his supervision, and having nothing more to do, he had been unable to resist the desire to mingle with the musicians, who knew him well, and who took pleasure in his gayety, his attractive, kindly face, and the enthusiasm with which he produced from time to time a shrill _ritornello_ on his instrument. When the minstrel whose place he had taken returned from the buffet, Pier-Angelo seized upon the vacant cymbals, and, toward the end of the quadrille, was sawing with great delight the heavy strings of the bass-viol. He was enchanted above all things to play for the princess, who, having espied his bald head on the platform among the orchestra, bestowed upon him from a distance a smile and an imperceptible friendly nod which the old man stored away in his heart. Michelangelo would have considered perhaps that his father gave his time too lavishly to the service of his dear patroness, and did not maintain strictly enough his dignity as an artisan. But at that moment Michel, who believed that he had forgotten or been cured of the effect of Princess Agatha's glance, had fallen so completely under its influence that he cared for nothing but to encounter it again. His only fine clothes, which a lingering remnant of ineradicable aristocratic feeling had led him to bring through the gorges of Ætna in a travelling-bag slung over his shoulder, were of fashionable cut and in good taste. His face, too, was so handsome and so noble that there certainly was nothing to which exception could be taken in his person or in his dress. And yet his presence in the circle immediately surrounding the princess had, for some moments past, offended the eyes of Master Barbagallo, the majordomo of the palace.