Alpha Book

And there is a shade of bitterness in the
knowledge that her marvellous beauty is waning. Can she be blamed for
that? She has been beautiful so long. What woman who has been first for
a quarter of a century can give up her place without a sigh? But much
has been given to her to soften the years of transition, and she knows
that also, when she looks from her husband to her four boys.
Then, too, it seems more easy to grow old when she catches a glimpse
from time to time of Donna Tullia Del Ferice, who wears her years
ungracefully, and who was once so near to becoming Giovanni
Saracinesca's wife. Donna Tullia is fat and fiery of complexion,
uneasily vivacious and unsure of herself. Her disagreeable blue eyes
have not softened, nor has the metallic tone of her voice lost its
sharpness. Yet she should not be a disappointed woman, for Del Ferice is
a power in the land, a member of parliament, a financier and a
successful schemer, whose doors are besieged by parasites and his
dinner-table by those who wear fine raiment and dwell in kings' palaces.


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