The Princess looked at the figure beside her.
"How happy you must be," she said with something like envy; "and I think you will continue to be happy. And Mr. Davenport is coming here, is he? You must introduce me at once, and I will give you both my blessing. That's something to look forward to. Come, we must go down, the others will be waiting."
Mimi was rather less noisy on the way home than usual. Prince Villari remarked it, and supposed that the fit of rusticity was not yet over. She bid a very affectionate good-night to Gertrude at the door of her hotel, and asked her to come and see her in the morning, and then altered the terms of the visit, and said she would come down to their hotel herself, and hoped to find Gertrude ready for a stroll before lunch.
She remained silent at dinner, and afterwards, when she and her husband were sitting in their room by the window, to let in the cool evening breeze, he felt enough curiosity to ask,—
"What is the matter with my charming wife that she is so silent?"
"I was thinking about Gertrude Carston," said Mimi. "She is engaged to be married."
Prince Villari puffed his cigar in silence for a few moments.
"Ah! that is interesting," he said at length. "I shall come with you to-morrow to offer my felicitations. How very handsome she is."
"I wish you would do nothing of the sort, Villari," said his wife. "Flirt with somebody else, if you must flirt with somebody. Flirt with me, if you like."
"That is a most original idea," he said. "I never heard of a husband flirting with his wife before."