"I haf met him," observed the Herr Musikaner, "at the hotel. We haf talked together, once or twice. He has been in South America—Argentine, ich glaube—and has made a fortune there. And madam, his wife, and he are making a grand tour of the world. Their wedding trip, I believe. Sie kommt von einer der ersten Familien—the Dalrymples. Der Herr Direktor of the Russicher-Chinese bank told me. He cashes the drafts—Her Gott—nicht kleine!"
These prosaic details the Frenchman, pictorially occupied, hardly, heard. "Mon Dieu! What a chapeau!" he sighed. "No wonder he looks enchanted at that wonderful creation of the Rue de la Paix."
"He seems quite an exception to some husbands in that respect!" remarked the Berliner in deep gutturals.
Sonia Turgeinov lighted a cigarette and blew the smoke at the flowers. There was a resentful cynicism in the act; she leaned back with greater abandon in her chair. "After all, the unities have been observed," she said with an odd laugh.
"What unities?" asked Roscius, becoming keen as a young hound on the scent, at the sound of the trite phrase.
"Oh, I was thinking of a play." Stretching more comfortably. Suddenly her cigarette waved; behind the flowers, her eyes dilated. Prince Boris Strogareff was coming down the steps; he passed the American couple they had been talking about and looked at them. A light of involuntary admiration shone from his gaze, but there was no recognition in it—only the instinctive tribute that a man of the world and a gallant Russian is ever prone to pay at the sight of an unusually charming member of the other sex. Then, once more impassive—a striking handsome figure—he moved leisurely down and out of the gardens. The couple, engrossed at the time in a conversation of some intimate nature or in each other, had not even seen or noticed the august nobleman.
Sonia Turgeinov drew harder on the cigarette; a laugh welled from her throat. "Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for worlds!" she said.
Young Roscius with the Tartar eyes stared at her. She threw away the smoking cylinder.
"I'm off!"
"Why—"