pearly laugh as his cape of violet silk lightly brushed her sheeny skin.

"You know that person, don't you?" Narcisse inquired of Pierre. "No!
Really? Why, that is Count Prada's _inamorata_, the charming Lisbeth
Kauffmann, by whom he has just had a son. It's her first appearance in
society since that event. She's a German, you know, and lost her husband
here. She paints a little; in fact, rather nicely. A great deal is
forgiven to the ladies of the foreign colony, and this one is
particularly popular on account of the very affable manner in which she
receives people at her little palazzo in the Via Principe Amedeo. As you
may imagine, the news of the dissolution of that marriage must amuse
her!"

She looked really exquisite, that Lisbeth, very fair, rosy, and gay, with
satiny skin, soft blue eyes, and lips wreathed in an amiable smile, which
was renowned for its grace. And that evening, in her gown of white silk
spangled with gold, she showed herself so delighted with life, so
securely happy in the thought that she was free, that she loved and was
loved in return, that the whispered tidings, the malicious remarks
exchanged behind the fans of those around her, seemed to turn to her
personal triumph. For a moment all eyes had sought her, and people talked
of the outcome of her connection with Prada, the man whose manhood the
Church solemnly denied by its decision of that very day! And there came
stifled laughter and whispered jests, whilst she, radiant in her insolent
serenity, accepted with a rapturous air the gallantry of Monsignor
Fornaro, who congratulated her on a painting of the Virgin with the lily,
which she had lately sent to a fine-art show.

Ah! that matrimonial nullity suit, which for a year had supplied Rome
with scandal, what a final hubbub it occasioned as the tidings of its
termination burst forth amidst that ball! The black and white worlds had
long chosen it as a battlefield for the exchange of incredible slander,
endless gossip, the most nonsensical tittle-tattle. And now it was over;
the Vatican with imperturbable impudence had pronounced the marriage null
and void on the ground that the husband was no man, and all Rome would
laugh over the affair, with that free scepticism which it displayed as
soon as the pecuniary affairs of the Church came into question. The
incidents of the struggle were already common property: Prada's feelings
revolting to such a point that he had withdrawn from the contest,