"You know," said the princess, "that the leader of the guitars is her husband? She adores him."
"Indeed? That is interesting. I saw that he lit her by a look, as some people, they say, light gas by the electricity in their fingers."
"I am one of the light-fingered gentry," laughed George Ray, fatuously. "In cold weather I can always do it, I am so strongly charged with electricity."
"You are such a large battery, such a mighty machine, that we are ablaze when you come near us," said Mrs. Van Winkle, with a satirical smile. Then she added, reflectively, as she opened and shut her fan, "Fancy being lit by your own husband! How curious! Though once, long ago, perhaps—" Then she broke off.
"Ah! They are so young—all is new!" sighed the princess. "One asks one's self, 'Will it continue?' Foreign natures are so volages. They know not what fidelity means. And, more than all, Italians and Spaniards—ah! They are a dreadful people, as I have good reason to know!"
Grace, generally ready with her tongue, felt rather at a loss what to say. Mrs. Van Winkle saved her.
"It must be very unexciting, dancing to your own husband. Herodias's daughter would not have won the Baptist's head under those circumstances. I feel like Marguerite de Valois, when she was thirsty, and drank a cup of cold water, and exclaimed, 'Ah! If it were only a sin!' The legitimate thing is always so very fade."
It was astonishing the pains this lady took to try and give a false impression of herself. But it was all thrown away on Grace.
"My aunt would have gratified Marguerite de Valois," she said. "She would have told her a cup of cold water was a sin—a deadly sin against hygienic laws. It is an idée fixe with her."
Then Mrs. Van Winkle moved on, bowing her cockatoo-like crest to right and left; and, as the princess had taken her seat, Grace turned to make some remark to Ferrars, but she saw to her surprise that he had left his chair, nor could she detect his head anywhere.