As she speaks, she hands him her handkerchief, and, to the consternation of the three watchers outside, he takes it, and with the gentlest touch rubs her cheeks with it, first the one, and then the other.
When he had finished this performance, both he and she stared at the handkerchief meditatively.
"I doubt you have taken it all off," she says, plaintively. "I couldn't have put more than that on, and surely the handkerchief has no need of a complexion; whilst I——It must be all gone now, and I was whiter than this bit of cambric when I put it on. Had I better run up to my room again, or——"
"Oh, no. You are all right; indeed you are. I'd say so at once if you weren't," says Ronayne, reassuringly. "You are looking as lovely as a dream."
"And my eyes?"
"Are beautifully done. No one on earth could find you out," says Ulic, comfortably; after which they both laugh merrily, and, quitting the impromptu boudoir, go down to the ballroom.
Mrs. Fitzgerald shows a faint disposition to sob, as they pass out of sight. Madam O'Connor is consumed with laughter.
"I don't think I should trouble myself to open 'that poor young Ronayne's' eyes, if I were you, Edith," she says, with tears of suppressed amusement in her eyes.
"He is lost!" says Mrs. Fitzgerald, with a groan; but whether she means to Bella or to decency never transpires.