He, the Marchese
Lamberto di Castelmare, who had never, till that hour, known what it
was to shun the eye of any man,--who had been accustomed to be the
cynosure of all eyes, and to feel that they were all turned on him
with respect and regard.
The occasion, and the part he was expected to fulfil in it, made it
necessary for him to recognize and return every minute the
salutations and greetings of his friends and those who knew him. And
who in Ravenna did not know the Marchese Lamberto? There was a good-
natured word wanted here, a gallant little phrase there, a
salutation with the speaking fingers to this carriage, a more formal
bow to the occupants of another, a gracious nod to one person, and a
smile to a second.
And all this the unhappy man essayed to perform, as he had so often
performed it happily, easily, and successfully in other days.
It was impossible for anybody, whose eye rested on the Marchese for
an instant, as he sat amid the flowers in his carriage, to avoid
seeing that there was something wrong with him--that he was very
unlike his usual self. And every eye, as the carriages passed each
other in the long procession, forming two lines as one passed down
the street while the other moved in the contrary direction, did rest
on him. But it never for an instant entered into the head of a
single human being there, to guess at anything like the real cause
of the change in the Marchese.
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