than even her husband ever remembered to have seen her; she wore a perfectly simple gown of black satin without the smallest relief of colour, and upon her neck the famous Astrardente necklace of pearls, three strings of even thickness, each jewel exquisitely white and just lighted in its shadow by a delicate pink tinge—­such a necklace as an empress might have worn.  In the raven masses of her hair there was not the least ornament, nor did any flower enhance the rich blackness of its silken coils.  It would be impossible to imagine greater simplicity than Corona showed in her dress, but it would be hard to conceive of any woman who possessed by virtue of severe beauty a more indubitable right to dispense with ornament.

The theatre was crowded.  There was a performance of “Norma” for which several celebrated artists had been engaged—­an occurrence so rare in Rome, that the theatre was absolutely full.  The Astrardente box was upon the second tier, just where the amphitheatre began to curve.  There was room in it for four or five persons to see the stage.

The Duchessa and her husband arrived in the middle of the first act, and remained alone until it was over.  Corona was extremely fond of “Norma,” and after she was seated never took her eyes from the stage.  Astrardente, on the other hand, maintained his character as a man of no illusions, and swept the house with his small opera-glass.  The instrument itself was like him, and would have been appropriate for a fine lady of the First Empire; it was of mother-of-pearl, made very small and light, the metal-work upon it heavily gilt and ornamented with turquoises.  The old man glanced from time to time at the stage, and then again settled himself to the study of the audience, which interested him far more than the opera.

“Every human being you ever heard of is here,” he remarked at the end of the first act.  “Really I should think you would find it worth while to look at your magnificent fellow-creatures, my dear.”

Corona looked slowly round the house.  She had excellent eyes, and never used a glass.  She saw the same faces she had seen for five years, the same occasional flash of beauty, the same average number of over-dressed women, the same paint, the same feathers, the same jewels.  She saw opposite to her Madame Mayer, with the elderly countess whom she patronised for the sake of deafness, and found convenient as a sort of flying chaperon.  The countess could not hear much of the music, but she was fond of the world and liked to be seen, and she could not hear at all what Del Ferice said in an undertone to Madame Mayer.  Sufficient to her were the good things of the day; the rest was in no way her business.  There was Valdarno in the club-box, with a knot of other men of his own stamp.  There were the Rocca, mother and daughter and son—­a boy of eighteen—­and a couple of men in the back of the box.  Everybody was there, as her husband had said; and as she dropped