Explore "Our own Set" by Ossip Schubin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Brancaleone Palace, on the slope of the Quirinal, is one of the finest in Rome, and particularly famous for its gardens, laid out in terraces down the side of the hill, with the lower rooms of the palazzo opening on to the uppermost level. The dancing was in a large, almost square, room adjoining a long vaulted corridor full of old pictures relieved here and there by the cold severity of an antique marble statue. It was lighted by marvellous chandeliers of Venetian glass that hung from the ceiling. At the end of the corridor two steps led down into an anteroom, dividing it from a smaller sanctuary where the gems of the Brancaleone collection were displayed -- mixed up, unfortunately, with several modern monstrosities -- and from this room a door opened into the garden.
Zinka arrived late. A transient and feverish expectancy lent her pinched features the brilliancy they had lost while her timid reserve gave her even more charm than her former innocent self-confidence, and her dress was certainly wonderfully becoming. Nor had she lost all her old popularity, for she was soon surrounded by a little crowd of Roman 'swells; ' one or two even of the Jatinskas' admirers deserted to Zinka.