On that same night, when Veronica had gone to her room, Bosio Macomer remained alone with the countess in the small drawing-room in which the family generally spent the evening.

Gregorio was presumably in his study, busy with his perpetual accounts or otherwise occupied.

He very often spent the hours between dinner and bed-time by himself, leaving his brother to keep his wife company if Veronica chose to retire early.
The room was small and the first impression of colour which it gave was that of a strong, deep yellow.

There was yellow damask on the walls, the curtains were of an old sort of silk material in stripes of yellow and chocolate, and most of the furniture was covered with yellow satin.

The whole was in the style of the early part of this century, modified by the bad taste of the Second Empire, with much gilded carving about the doors and the corners of the big panels in which the damask was stretched, while the low, vaulted ceiling was a mass of gilt stucco, modelled in heavy acanthus leaves and arabesques, from the centre of which hung a chandelier of white Venetian glass.