He made her a bow.
"I spoke collectively, of course," he said, amidst the general laugh, and not a whit discomposed. "If you knew how dreary you make the court after your villa, and how we pine after you all!" he said, with a sigh. "Why, I declare, to-day, if it had not been for the effort which becomes a duty, we should most of us have been in tears. I missed everything I shot at, did I not, prince? But, bah! I must not appeal to you, for you were as bad. Indeed, I do not know what has come to you lately; you have lost your own altogether."
"That is true," said a young attache; "and Rivani used to be the best shot amongst us; the best I know, except Blair Leyton."
The prince was standing beside Margaret, showing her some photographs of Rome which he had sent for, and was paying no attention to the general conversation.
"That is St. Peter's," he was saying, when suddenly Blair's name smote upon her ear.
She looked up, pale as death, and the photograph fell from her hand to the floor. Half a dozen hands were outstretched to recover it, but the prince stooped and picked it up, and stood in front of her as a screen.
"Are you ill?" he asked in a low voice; but Margaret did not hear him. She sat, leaning forward a little, her face deadly white, her eyes fixed upon the young attache.
The prince took up a fan and unobtrusively fanned her, his fine eyes fixed on her face with the tenderest regard.
She did not seem as if she were about to faint, but rather as if she had fallen into a trance.