What she had said was true. She rarely
asked anything of her husband. But when she did, she gave him to
understand that she would have it at any price. It was her way of
asserting herself from time to time. On the present occasion she had no
especial interest at stake and any other woman might have been satisfied
with a seat in the diplomatic tribune, which could probably have been
obtained without great difficulty. But she had heard that the seats
there were to be very high and she did not really wish to be placed in
too prominent a position. The light might be unfavourable, and she knew
that she was subject to growing very red in places where it was hot. She
had once been a handsome woman and a very vain one, but even her vanity
could not survive the daily shock of the looking-glass torture. To sit
for four or five hours in a high light, facing fifty thousand people,
was more than she could bear with equanimity.
Del Ferice, being left to himself, returned to the question of the
mayor's decoration which was of vastly greater importance to him than
his wife's position at the approaching function.
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