'Now what a pity you were not there, _cugino mio_! For five louis you might have eaten fruit out of which I had had the first bite, and have drunk champagne out of the hollow of Elena's hands for five more.' 'How scandalous!' broke in the Baroness d'Isola, with a horrified grimace.
'Ah, Mary, I like that! And did you not sell cigarettes that you lighted up first yourself for a louis ?' cried Francesca through her laughter.
Then she became suddenly grave.

'Every deed, with a charitable object in view, is sacred,' she observed sententiously.

'By merely biting into fruit, I collected at least two hundred louis.' 'And you ?' Andrea Sperelli turned to Elena with as constrained smile--'With your human drinking-cup--how much did you get ?' 'I ?--oh, two hundred and seventy louis.' Everybody was full of fun and laughter, excepting the Marchese d'Ateleta, who was old, and afflicted with incurable deafness; was padded and painted--in a word, artificial from head to foot.

He was very like one of the figures one sees at a wax work show.

From time to time--usually the wrong one--he would give vent to a little dry cackling laugh, like the rattle of some rusty mechanism inside him.
'However,' Elena resumed, 'you must know, that after a certain point in the evening, the price rose to ten louis, and at last, that lunatic of a Galeazzo Secinaro came and offered me a five hundred lire note, if I would dry my hands on his great golden beard!' As was ever the case at the d'Ateletas', the dinner increased in splendour towards the end; for the true luxury of the table is shown in the dessert.