"You and he talked all night?"
"All night long—all night long."
Charlotte looked quickly at her friend, blinked her eyes, looked away and looked back again. It was not for nothing that her black eyebrows almost met—a sign, the physiognomists tell us, of a jealous nature.
The whole process of her thought was on her face. She had never been jealous of her husband in all her life before—but then, she had never before brought him face to face with perfection. She summed it up in her first sentence.
"Dan is no fool," she said. "He felt as you did?"
The princess smiled. "Ah, Charlotte!" she said. "An Italian woman would not have asked that. You must find that out for yourself."
There was a short silence, and then Charlotte got up and walked toward the door.
It was evident that she was going to find out at once. But the princess had one more salutary blow for her. She was standing now with her elbow on the mantelpiece and her eyes fixed on the little spare-room picture, and just as Charlotte reached the door Lisa spoke.
"Oh!" she said. "One other thing. Don't despise this little picture that your husband bought. It's the best thing you have."
This was a little too much. "Not better than my Guardis," Charlotte wailed, for she would never think of disputing the princess' judgment.