you like.'

'The substantive of the adjective.'

'What?'

'We will come back to that presently. The word is: _linguatica_--Messer
Ludovico, you can add this clause to your litanies--'_Rosa linguatica,
glube nos_.'

'What a pity,' said Musellaro, 'that you are not at the table of a
sixteenth-century prince, sitting between a Violante and an Imperia with
Pietro Aretino, Giulio Romano, and Marc' Antonio!'

CHAPTER II

The year was dying gracefully. A late wintry sun filled the sky over
Rome with a soft, mild, golden light that made the air feel almost
spring-like. The streets were full as on a Sunday in May. A stream of
carriages passed and repassed rapidly through the Piazza Barberini and
the Piazza di Spagna, and from thence a vague and continuous rumble
mounted to the Trinita de' Monti and the Via Sistina and even faintly
reached the apartments of the Palazzo Zuccari.

The rooms began slowly to fill with the scent exhaled from numberless
vases of flowers. Full-blown roses hung their heavy heads over crystal
vases that opened like diamond lilies on a golden stem, similar to those
standing behind the Virgin in the _tondo_ of Botticelli in the Borghese
Gallery. No other shape of vase is to be compared with this for
elegance; in that diaphanous prison, the flowers seemed to etherealise
and had more the air of a religious than an amatory offering.

For Andrea Sperelli was expecting Elena Muti.

He had met her only yesterday morning in the Via Condotti, where she was
looking at the shops. She had returned to Rome a day or two before,
after her long and mysterious absence. They had both been considerably
agitated by the unexpected encounter, but the publicity of the street
compelled them to treat one another with ceremonious, almost cold
politeness. However, he had said with a grave, half-mournful air,
looking her full in the eyes--'I have much to say to you, Elena; will
you come to my rooms to-morrow? Everything is just as it used to
be--nothing is changed.' To which she replied quite simply--'Very well,
I will come. You may expect me about four o'clock. I too have something
to say to you--but leave me now.'

That she should have accepted the invitation so promptly, without demur,
without imposing any conditions or seemingly attaching the smallest
importance to the matter, roused a certain vague suspicion in Andrea's
mind. Was she coming as friend or lover?--to renew old ties or to
destroy all hope of su