or Monte this morning," Mamie explained over the soup.
"He reckoned dressing up was just foolishness, but the fact is armour
is hot and heavy, and he would have had to pass from trousers into
greaves. He has not got the right kind of legs for parti-coloured
hosen, someway."

The Piazza della Signoria was crowded as it had been on that dreadful
May day when Girolamo's broken body was burnt to ashes there; as it
was on the afternoon of the Pazzi conspiracy, when a bishop was hanged
from one of the windows of the old Palazzo. But the old order had
changed, giving place to new even here, and the people had come now
merely to see the fine dresses; there was no thought of murder,
though there might be some picking of pockets. The night was still and
cold, and the white, round moon that had risen above the roof of the
Loggia dei Lanzi shone, unclouded, upon the restless human sea that
divided here and there to let the carriages and motors pass. The
guests entered by the side door nearest the Uffizi, and _carabinieri_
kept the way clear. The crowd was dense thereabouts, and the people
pushed and jostled one another, leaned forward, and stood on tiptoe to
see the brocaded ladies in their jewelled coifs and the men, hooded
and strange, in their gay mediaeval garb.

The Marchesa's cloth of gold drew the prolonged "Oh!" of admiration
that is only accorded to the better kind of fireworks, and hearing it,
she smiled, well satisfied. Mamie followed with Filippo. Her dress of
rose-coloured brocade was exquisite. It clung to her and seemed to be
her one and only garment; one could almost see the throb of her heart
through the thin stuff. She let her furred cloak fall as she got out
of the car and then drew it up again about her bare arms and
shoulders.

"Who is the black-curled scarlet thing?"

"Beatrice."

"What! half naked! She is more like one of the _donnine_ in the
_Decameron_."

Her Dante, overhearing, hurried her up the steps. His eyes were
bright with anger in the shadow of his hood, but they changed and
darkened as he caught sight of one girl's face in the crowd. At the
foot of the grand staircase he turned, muttering some excuse and
leaving Mamie and her mother to go up alone, and hurried back and out
into the street. He stood aside as though to allow some newcomers to
pass in. The girl he had come to see was close to him, but she was
half hidden behind a _carabiniere's_ broad epauletted shoulders.

"_Scusi_," murmur