But Conny Landbrooke's melodious twitterings had left no more mark on Andrea's heart than the light musical echo left in one's ear for a time by some gay ritornella.

More than once in some pensive hour of twilight melancholy, she had said to him with a mist of tears before her eyes--'I know you do not love me.' And in truth he did not love her, she did not by any means satisfy his longings.

His ideal was less northern in character.

Ideally he felt himself attracted by those courtesans of the sixteenth century, over whose faces there would appear to be drawn some indefinable veil of sorcery, some transparent mask of enchantment, some divine nocturnal spell.
The moment Andrea set eyes on the Duchess of Scerni, he said to himself--'_This_ is my Ideal Woman!' and his whole soul went out to her in a transport of joy, in the presentiment of the future..