‘Prince,’ said the Duke, ‘I hope Madame de Harestein approves of your trip to England?’
The Prince only smiled, for he was of a silent disposition, and therefore wonderfully well suited his travelling companion.
‘Poor Madame de Harestein!’ exclaimed Count Frill. ‘What despair she was in, when you left Vienna, my dear Duke. I did what I could to amuse her. I used to take my guitar, and sing to her morning and night, but without effect. She certainly would have died of a broken heart, if it had not been for the dancing-dogs.’
‘Did they bite her?’ asked a lady who affected the wit of Lord Squib, ‘and so inoculate her with gaiety.’
‘Everybody was mad about the dancing-dogs. They came from Peru, and danced the mazurka in green jackets with a jabot. Oh! what a jabot!’
‘I dislike animals excessively,’ remarked another lady, who was as refined as Mr. Annesley, her model.
‘Dislike the dancing-dogs!’ said Count Frill. ‘Ah! my good lady, you would have been enchanted. Even the Kaiser fed them with pistachio nuts. Oh! so pretty! Delicate leetle things, soft shining little legs, and pretty little faces! so sensible, and with such jabots!’
‘I assure you they were excessively amusing,’ said the Prince, in a soft, confidential undertone to his neighbour, Mrs. Montfort, who was as dignified as she was beautiful, and who, admiring his silence, which she took for state, smiled and bowed with fascinating condescension.
‘And what else has happened very remarkable, Count, since I left you?’ asked Lord Darrell.
‘Nothing, nothing, my dear Darrell. This bêtise of a war has made us all serious. If old Clamstandt had not married that gipsy, little Dugiria, I really think I should have taken a turn to Belgrade.’