Who was the artist who had contrived for his Hippolyta so superb and bold a fantasy of Death, at a period too when the masters of enamelling had been wont to ornament with tender idylls the little watches destined to warn Coquette of the time of the rendezvous in the parks of Watteau?
The modelling gave evidence of a masterly hand--vigorous and full of admirable style; altogether it was worthy of a fifteenth century artist as forcible as Verrocchio.
'I recommend this clock to your consideration.' Andrea could not help smiling a little at Elena's words uttered in so peculiar a tone after so cold a silence.

He was assured that she intended him to put the construction upon her words which he had afterwards done, but then why retire into impenetrable reserve again--why take no further notice of him--what ailed her?
Andrea lost himself in a maze of conjecture.
Nevertheless, the warm atmosphere of the room, the luxurious chair, the shaded lamp, the fitful gleams of firelight, the aroma of the tea--all these soothing influences combined to mitigate his pain.

He went on dreamingly, aimlessly, as if wandering through a fantastic labyrinth.
With him reverie sometimes had the effect of opium--it intoxicated him.
'May I take the liberty of reminding the Signor Conte that he is expected at the Casa Doria at seven o'clock,' observed his valet in a subdued and discreet murmur, one of his offices being to jog his master's memory.

'Everything is ready.' He went into an adjoining octagonal room to dress, the most luxurious and comfortable dressing-room any young man of fashion could possibly desire.

On a great Roman sarcophagus, transformed with much taste into a toilet table, were ranged a selection of cambric handkerchiefs, evening gloves, card and cigarette cases, bottles of scent, and five or six fresh gardenias in separate little pale blue china vases--all these frivolous and fragile things on this mass of stone, on which a funeral _cortege_ was sculptured by a masterly hand!.