Dodo laughed.
"I'm sure you need not be bored with him," she said. "He must have a strong vein of unconscious humour about him."
"I'm quite unconscious of it," said the Princess. "You cannot form the slightest idea of what he's like till you see him. I almost feel inclined to tell him to come here."
"Ah, but you Russian women have such liberty," said Dodo. "You can tell your husband not to expect to see you again for three months. We can't do that. An English husband and wife are like two Siamese twins. Until about ten years ago they used to enter the drawing-room, when they were going out to dinner, arm-in-arm."
"That's very bourgeois," said the Princess. "You are rather a bourgeois race. You are very hearty, and pleased to see one, and all that. There's Lord Chesterford. You're a great friend of his, aren't you? He looks very distinguished. I should say he was usually bored."
"He was my husband's first cousin," said Dodo. Princess Alexandrina of course knew that Miss Vane was a widow. "I was always an old friend of his—as long as I can remember, that's to say. Jack and I are going up towards the Eiffel to watch the sunset. Come with us."
"I think I'll see the sunset from here," she said. "You're going up a hill, I suppose?"
"Oh, but you can't see it from here," said Dodo. "That great mass of mountain is in the way."
The Princess considered.
"I don't think I want to see the sunset after all," she said. "I've just found the Kreutzer Sonata. I've been rural enough for one day, and I want a breath of civilised air. Do you know, I never feel bored when you are talking to me."