"Good gracious! This is myself!" thought Regina, amused but slightly offended. "She doesn't treat me very kindly, this girl! What does she mean by that last phrase?"
Suddenly she remembered that Gabrie had once told her certain stories she has got from her fellow-students.
"But it's a fire of calumny, that college of yours!" Regina had protested, and Gabrie had answered—
"A fire? It's a furnace!"
She read on—
"An authoress: tall, thin, yellow, with little, milky eyes, small mouth, black teeth, yellow hair, hooked nose. Moves pity by the mere sight of her. When she's with men she also tries to flirt."
"That's Arduina, slain in three lines," thought Regina.
Then she found Massimo, Marianna—("short, with malicious olive face, little black eyes, pretends always to speak the truth, but a sculptor would entitle her, 'Statuette in bronze representing Malignant Folly'"), the blind lady, other persons who frequented the Princess's receptions, to which Regina had taken Gabrie several times. At last—
"A foreigner: very rich, tall, and stout; very black hair (dyed), lips too thick, pale, almost livid. Eyes small and sharp; mysterious as those of a wicked cat. Never laughs. Impossible to guess her age. Deaf. Always talking of an uncle who knew Georges Sand. Type of the sensual woman. Has a young lover——"
And immediately after—