CHAPTER III.
St.Apollinare in Classe The Marchese remained at the ball to see one more dance between Ludovico and Bianca after their supper; and then left the rooms.

There was nothing at all to cause remark in his thus retiring before the evening.
He never danced;--he happened not to be playing cards on that evening.
It was quite natural that such a man should prefer going home to bed to remaining with the jeunes gens till the break-up of the ball.
How he enjoyed that last dance, which he stayed to see, the reader may perhaps imagine.

Standing by a chimney-piece, on one corner of which he rested his elbow, he in great measure shaded his face with his hand, yet not so as to prevent him from seeing every movement of the persons, and every expression of the faces of the couple he was watching.

There was a raging hell in his heart.

And yet he stood there, and gazed eagerly, greedily one would have said.