“Fair lady,” said Wilfrid, bowing as he spoke, “you are alone, though it be the unwritten law of a masquerade that every one must have a companion.”
“Then are you breaking that law,” replied the lady; “for you, too, seem alone.”
“A Courtenay is ambitious, you see; he will have for his companion none but the fairest.”
“And have you not found her in Pauline de Vaucluse?”
Her tone was slightly satirical. Had she seen him in the ballroom, he wondered, and recognised with whom he was dancing?
“Your highness, it was not for Pauline de Vaucluse that I wrought for three months in a solitary attic.”
“No; it was for a wronged and widowed empress,” replied the Duchess, feigning not to see his meaning. “Lord Courtenay, the Empress is unspeakably grateful for your good work. The one desire of her heart was to see the fall of the wicked Ministry, and, thanks to you, she has been enabled to see it. You wanted no reward, but the Empress prays you to name one.”
“Why, I thought I had named one.”
“Foolish Englishman,” she murmured, averting her head, “have you not forgotten that?”
And then, as if wishful to divert his thoughts from herself, she said, with her eyes set upon the river:—