Something he had not known in his life before.  Previously there had been always some personal quality, some sort of personal tenderness.  But here, none.  She did not seem to want it.  She seemed to hate it, indeed.  No, all he felt was stark, naked desire, without a single pretension.  True enough, his last experience had been a warning to him.  His desire and himself likewise had broken rather disastrously under the proving.  But not finally broken.  He was ready again.  And with all the sheer powerful insolence of desire he looked forward to the evening.  For he almost expected Manfredi would not be there.  The officer had said something about having to go to Padua on the Saturday afternoon.

So Aaron went skipping off to his appointment, at seven o’clock.  Judge of his chagrin, then, when he found already seated in the salotta an elderly, quite well-known, very cultured and very well-connected English authoress.  She was charming, in her white hair and dress of soft white wool and white lace, with a long chain of filigree gold beads, like bubbles.  She was charming in her old-fashioned manner too, as if the world were still safe and stable, like a garden in which delightful culture, and choice ideas bloomed safe from wind and weather.  Alas, never was Aaron more conscious of the crude collapse in the world than when he listened to this animated, young-seeming lady from the safe days of the seventies.  All the old culture and choice ideas seemed like blowing bubbles.  And dear old Corinna Wade, she seemed to be blowing bubbles still, as she sat there so charming in her soft white dress, and talked with her bright animation about the influence of woman in Parliament and the influence of woman in the Periclean day.  Aaron listened spell-bound, watching the bubbles float round his head, and almost hearing them go pop.

To complete the party arrived an elderly litterateur who was more proud of his not-very-important social standing than of his literature.  In fact he was one of those English snobs of the old order, living abroad.  Perfectly well dressed for the evening, his grey hair and his prim face was the most well-dressed thing to be met in North Italy.

“Oh, so glad to see you, Mr. French.  I didn’t know you were in Florence again.  You make that journey from Venice so often.  I wonder you don’t get tired of it,” cried Corinna Wade.

“No,” he said.  “So long as duty to England calls me to Florence, I shall come to Florence.  But I can LIVE in no town but Venice.”

“No, I suppose you can’t.  Well, there is something special about Venice:  having no streets and no carriages, and moving about in a gondola.  I suppose it is all much more soothing.”

“Much less nerve-racking, yes.  And then there is a quality in the whole life.  Of course I see few English people in Venice—­only the old Venetian families, as a rule.”

“Ah, yes.  That must be very interesting.  They are very exclusive still, the Venetian noblesse?” said Miss Wade.