The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloak--an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening--I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur 'Mon ange'--in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of love alone--when a figure jumped from the carriage after her; cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched _porte cochere_ of the hotel.
"Benché Celina fosse avvolta in un mantello, impiccio inutile in quella calda serata di giugno, riconobbi subito il piedino di lei quando saltò di carrozza, e dal terrazzo stavo per gridare: "Angiolo mio!" con una voce che soltanto l'amore può capire, quando un'altra persona, avvolta pure nel mantello, uscì dietro a lei. "Ma questa volta fu un tocco con lo sperone che battè sul marciapiede, fu un cappello mascolino che passò sotto il portone del palazzo.