“Not the fellow that st-st-strangled the Emperor? Oh, I forgot; he was a Russian, wasn't he? They got him down and ch-ch-choked him, ha, ha, ha! There 's a man with a red moustache, so like the fellow who sells the boubou-bouquets at the Casciui.”
“A Hungarian magnate,” whispered Kate.
“Is he, though? Then let's have another look at him. He has as many gold chains about him as a shop on the Ponte Vecchio. Zoe would like him, he 's so odd.”
At last, but not without great efforts, Kate succeeded in reaching a small chamber, where two others already were seated, and whose figures were undistinguishable in the obscurity of a studiously shaded lamp.
“Isn't it strange, she never asked for Zoe?” said Purvis, as he took his seat on a sofa; “not to inquire for a person sick under her own r-r-roof?”
“Lady Hester is not acquainted with Mrs. Ricketts.”
“Well, but sh-sh-she ought to be. Zoe made a party for her, a d-d-d-iner party, and had Hagg-Haggerstone and Foglass, and the rest of them. And after all, you know, they are only b-bankers, these Onslows, and need n't give themselves airs.”
“You have a letter for me, Mr. Purvis? Will you pardon my impatience—”
“Yes, to be sure. I 've a letter, and an enclosure in it, too; at least, it feels crisp like a note, a bank-note; that 's the reason you 're impatient. Perhaps the re-reremittance was long a-coming, eh?”
Kate made no reply to this speech, but her cheek grew scarlet as she heard it.