"What are your plans for the evening?" inquired Darvid again.
"We shall remain at home,'" answered Malvina.
"How is that?—but the party at Prince and Princess Zeno's!"
"We had no intention—" said Malvina, in an attempt at self-defence; but she saw the look of her husband, and the voice broke in her throat.
"You and your daughter will go to that party," said he, with a low whisper, which hissed from his lips. And immediately he added aloud, with a smile: "Ladies, I advise you to be at that party."
Malvina became almost as white as the fur which encircled her neck, and at that moment Irene asked:
"Will you be there, father?"
"I will run in for a while. As usual, I have no time."
"What a pity," said Baron Emil, "that I cannot offer you a part of mine as a gift. In this regard I am a regular Dives."
"And I a beggar! For this reason I must take farewell of you."