The Marchesa and her husband occupied the two ends of the table, which glittered with rare china, silver, crystal and flowers.
Very few women could compete with the Marchesa d'Ateleta in the art of dinner giving.

She expended more care and forethought in the preparation of a menu than of a toilette.

Her exquisite taste was patent in every detail, and her word was law in the matter of elegant conviviality.

Her fantasies and her fashions were imitated on every table of the Roman upper ten.

This winter, for instance, she had introduced the fashion of hanging garlands of flowers from one end of the table to the other, on the branches of great candelabras, and also that of placing in front of each guest, among the group of wine glasses, a slender opalescent Murano vase with a single orchid in it.
'What a diabolical flower!' said Elena Muti, taking up the vase and examining the orchid which seemed all blood-stained.
Her voice was of such rich full _timbre_ that even her most trivial remarks acquired a new significance, a mysterious grace, like that King of Phrygia whose touch turned everything to gold.
'A symbolical flower--in your hands,' murmured Andrea, gazing at his neighbour, whose beauty in that attitude was really amazing.
She was dressed in some delicate tissue of palest blue, spangled with silver dots which glittered through antique Burano lace of an indefinable tint of white inclining to yellow.