PART FIRST
THE ROYAL END
I
BALZATORE, by many coquetries, had long been trying to attract their attention. At last he had succeeded.
“You have an admirer,” Ruth, with a gleam, remarked to her companion. “Mercy, how he's ogling you.”
“Yes,” answered Lucilla Dor, untroubled, in that contented, caressing voice of hers, while, her elbow on the table, with the “languid grace,” about which Ruth chaffed her a good deal, she pensively nibbled a fig. “The admiration is reciprocal. What a handsome fellow he is!”
And her soft blue eyes smiled straight into Balzatore's eager brown ones.