The English Sister came to say that the Countess wished to see her niece

immediately. The invalid, now frightfully emaciated and no longer able

to sit up, was lying back on her lace-edged pillows. She was plucking

with shrivelled and bony fingers at her figured counterpane, and as Roma

entered she tried to burst out on her in a torrent of wrath. But the

sound that came from her throat was like a voice shouted on a windy

headland, and hardly louder than the muffled voices of the auctioneers

as they found their way through the walls.

Roma sat down on the stool by the bedside, stroked the cat with the

gold cross suspended from its neck, and listened to the words within the

room and without as they fell on her ear alternately.

"Roma, you are treating me shamefully. While I am lying here helpless

you are having an auction--actually an auction--at the door of my very

room."

"Camera da letto della Signorina! Bed in noce, richly ornamented with

fruit and flowers." "Shall I say fifty?" "Thank you, fifty." "Fifty."

"Fifty-five." "Fifty-five." "No advance on fifty-five?" "Gentlemen,

gentlemen! The beautiful bed of a beautiful lady, and only fifty-five

offered for it!..."

"If you wanted money you had only to ask the Baron, and if you didn't

wish to do that, you had only to sign a bill at six months, as I told

you before. But no! You wanted to humble and degrade me. That's all it

is. You've done it, too, and I'm dying in disgrace...."

"Secretaire in walnut! Think, ladies, of the secrets this writing-desk

might whisper if it would! How much shall I say?" "Sixty lire." "Sixty."

"Sixty-five." "Sixty-five." "Writing-desk in walnut with the love

letters hardly out of it, and only sixty-five lire offered!..."

"This is what comes of a girl going her own way. Society is not so very

exacting, but it revenges itself on people who defy the

respectabilities. And quite right, too! Pity they could not be the only

ones to suffer, but they can't. Their friends and relations are the real

sufferers; and as for me...."

The Countess's voice broke down into a maudlin whimper. Without a word

Roma rose up to go. As she did so she met Natalina coming into the room

with the usual morning plate of forced strawberries. They had cost four

francs the pound.

Some time afterwards, from her writing-table in the boudoir-bedroom,

Roma heard a shuffling of feet on the circular iron stairs. The people

were going down to the studio. Presently the auctioneer's voice came up

as from a vault.




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