Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/140

Rh many useless titles, and barren dignities, he was, like many an Italian noble, also a grandee of Spain.

"You do not dance, Madame?" he asked.

"Very seldom," she answered, as she accepted his arm to move through the rooms. "When mediæval dresses came in, dancing should have been banished. Who could dance well in a long close clinging robe tightly tied back, and heavy with gold thread and bullion fringes; they should revive the minuet; we might go through that without being ridiculous. But if they will have the cotillon instead, they should dress like the girls in Offenbach's pieces, as many of them happen to be to-night. I do not object to a mixture of epochs in furniture, but romping in a rénaissance skirt!—that is really almost blasphemy enough to raise the ghost of Titian!"

"I am afraid Madama Pampinet and the Fiammina must have romped sometimes," said Della Rocca with a smile. "But then you will say the Decadence had already cast its shadow before it."