Hugh was looking at the third box to the left of the royalties.
“Take my glass,” said Lady Forwood, “and look at the third box to the right of the royal people. Make haste, for in another minute she may settle herself behind the curtain and stay there the whole evening. It would be just like her.”
Hugh focussed the glass, and with a singular sensation that was almost a thrill, he gazed at a lovely girl who was leaning forward glancing round the house. She was pale with a waxen pallor; her black hair was dressed high, and studded with pearls. She wore a white velvet gown, a shade whiter than her beautifully moulded bust and arms, and this appeared to be sewn with pearls. So youthful was her slender form that, had Hugh not recognized the Prince Andriocchi and his friend the count hovering in the background, he would hardly have believed this could be the new patient about whom so much fuss had been made.
“She is quite a girl!” he said, in surprise, turning to Lady Forwood.
“Why not?” asked she. “She was only married a year ago. Spanish girls marry young.”
“But, from what you said, I fancied you had been girl friends,” said Hugh, without thinking.
“How like you, to say that!” said Lady Forwood, with a good-natured laugh, as Hugh, forgetting his dislike to the rôle of “spy,” scrutinised her highness closely through the glasses. “That is almost on a par with your speech to the Princess M——, one of the stories she always tells to show what a bear you are, sir!”
“I do not remember saying anything to the Princess M——,” said Hugh, laying down the lorgnette.
“You don’t remember her playing to you, and your saying that you had never cared for any playing except that of a relation of yours?”
“No,” said Hugh, who was beginning to think deeply on the subject of his new “case;” and his thoughts were curious, and to him utterly unexpected. “But what did I say to you that was bearish just now, Lady Forwood? I don’t care if her Royal Highness tells anecdotes about me or not—it amuses her, and doesn’t harm me. But I cannot be misunderstood by you.”