She shot him an upward glance of her siren eyes.
“I have been thinking about this business that we have on hand,” she continued; “and, Ferdinand, if you wish my aid, you must get busy—I can’t endure this stagnation longer. I’m a wild beast that would die in confinement; I need the jungle and the air and sky.”
He laughed, and pinched her ear.
“Your jungle, little one, is the Champs Élysées and cher Maxim’s; la chaleur communicative du banquet;—your air and sky, the adulation of the masculine and the stare of admiring eyes.”
“Yes, it is; and I’ve been away a long, long time; yet I want to stay with you until this work is ended—because” (taking his hand and smiling up at him) “you have been good to me, and because it promises excitement of a novel sort—only, dear, do let us be at it.”
A door swung back. “Madam is served!” came the monotone.
As they went in, the Duke slipped his arm around her slender waist.
“We’re going to be at it,” he said; “send the servants away and I’ll tell you my plan; it was for that I came last evening.”
“Now, tell me!” she exclaimed, as the door closed behind the footman.
“We are going back to Lotzenia,” he said.