"I think you were
right; if we part at once, we may still part friends. You have
had my advice not to go to the ball, and you decline following
it. I have nothing more to say. Good-night."
Before Fabio could utter the angry rejoinder that rose to his
lips, the door of the room had opened and closed again, and the
priest was gone.
CHAPTER III.
The next night, at the time of assembling specified in the
invitations to the masked ball, Fabio was still lingering in his
palace, and still allowing the black domino to lie untouched and
unheeded on his dressing-table. This delay was not produced by
any change in his resolution to go to the Melani Palace. His
determination to be present at the ball remained unshaken; and
yet, at the last moment, he lingered and lingered on, without
knowing why. Some strange influence seemed to be keeping him
within the walls of his lonely home. It was as if the great,
empty, silent palace had almost recovered on that night the charm
which it had lost when its mistress died.
He left his own apartment and went to the bedroom where his
infant child lay asleep in her little crib. He sat watching her,
and thinking quietly and tenderly of many past events in his life
for a long time, then returned to his room. A sudden sense of
loneliness came upon him after his visit to the child's bedside;
but he did not attempt to raise his spirits even then by going to
the ball.
Pages:
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482