"I see," she said, "a fine imitation of that Guercino in the Villa Ludovisi. It is superb, truly superb!"
Hildegard was in a state of painful excitement. The young Princess had, anyhow, impressed her greatly; now this unexpected, but of course perfectly natural, intimacy at Court, and specially such a mission, possibly the one solitary motive of the whole visit, and upon which the Baron's fate depended. She felt almost dizzy, and it cost her a considerable struggle to be able to say with some calmness--
"I beg your pardon, my dear Alexandra, but you have forgotten the main thing."
"The main thing! What main thing?
"What your unprejudiced opinion of the Baron now is."
"To be sure!"
She looked again at Hildegard. There was an odd smile on her lips now.
"If my opinion were only unprejudiced. But how can that be when the friends of our friends are our own, or ought to be?"
"You shall not escape thus," said Hildegard, whose sinking courage the fair visitor's smile had revived a little.
"I do not mean to escape," replied the Princess; "only I do not quite like to confess a silly trick to you which my memory, which is generally very fair as far as physiognomies are concerned, is playing me in this case. But it is simply impossible to free one's self altogether from the influence which a marked personal likeness exercises; and when I first saw the Baron, there came to me the most disagreeable reminiscence of an episode of the last journey I made with my lamented mother to Italy. However, as I ought at once to state, there is no harm in the matter, for the Baron, whom I asked, says he was not in Monaco that year."