But the Contessa Zoya showed neither sympathy nor credulity, and there was no misinterpreting her meaning as she said:
"It is true, Princess, you know the Potensi well, and I only slightly—but if my husband offered a diamond ornament——"
"He would never give her another! Is that it?" put in Tornik.
"No—nor any one!" The intensity of her tone alarmed Nina, who was beginning to feel confused by the succession of violent impressions. Scorpa, Giovanni, Carpazzi, Zoya Olisco, all struck such strident notes that their vibrations jangled.
Another act and entr'acte passed. Nina saw Giovanni enter the box of the Contessa Potensi. In contrast to her greeting across the house, she seemed now scarcely to speak to him. He talked to her companion, the Princess Malio, who bobbed her head and prattled at a great rate; but as he left the box Nina saw him lean toward the Contessa Potensi as though saying something in an undertone. She answered rapidly, behind her fan. Giovanni inclined his head and left.
This small incident made a greater impression on Nina than its importance warranted. And the Contessa Potensi occupied her thoughts far more than the various men who had come into the box, and who seemed little more than so many varieties of faces and shirt-fronts. She noticed that many of the older men wore Father Abraham beards and clothes several sizes too big. On account of the Court Ball those who had orders wore them, frequently so carelessly pinned to their coats that the decorations seemed likely to fall off. The Marchese Valdeste—a really imposing man—had two huge ones dangling from the flapping lapel of his coat, and a sash with a bow on the hip that would put any man's dignity to a supreme test.
"The ballet is very important to-night," Nina heard the marchese saying to the Princess Sansevero. "La Favorita is to appear in the Birth of Venus. She does another dance first—a Spanish one, I think."
As he spoke, the ballet music had already begun, and the Spanish coryphées were twisting and bowing, and straightening their spines as they danced to the beat of their castanettes. Then they moved aside for the ballerina.
It may have been intended as a Spanish dance, or Eastern, or gypsy—but it was more likely a dance of La Favorita's own imagination. She appeared clad in a thin slip of transparent and jetted gauze. Upon her feet were socks and ballet slippers of black satin. A black mask covered the upper part of her face, and her black hair was drawn high and held with a diamond bracelet; she wore a diamond collar, long diamond earrings, and the gauze of her upper garment—which could hardly be called a bodice—was held on one shoulder with a band of diamonds. For the space of a second she faced the audience, standing still and rigid; then, with a quiver, the rigidity was shattered! A serpent's coiling was not more swift than the movement of her dazzling, glittering form, which twirled and turned and bent, while the twinkling rapidity of her steps was faster than the eye could follow. A twirl, another twirl, a flash—and she was gone.