“It’s getting chilly,” he observed—“notice it?”
The boudoir room swung open and Mlle. d’Essoldé came in.
“Can’t say I do,” said the Archduke aside, as he acknowledged her curtsy; “looks very charming to me.”
She gave the Archduke a smile, Moore a look of indifferent greeting, and then Armand another smile.
“My mistress receives Your Highness,” she said, holding back the door; and quite ignoring Moore’s effort, as he sprang forward to relieve her.
Under the chandelier, where sixty candles fluttered their mellow light about her, the Regent of Valeria was standing; but her eyes were on the red rose she was slowly pulling apart, nor did she lift them when Armand entered. Having come in a little way, slowly and with purposeful deliberation, he stopped, and leaning on his sword tarried for her to speak; and willing that she should not, for a while, that so, he might have this picture long enough to see it ever after—this white-robed, fair-headed daughter of the Dalbergs, waiting to pass judgment on her betrothed.
The last petal fell; she plucked another rose—a white one—from her corsage, and looked up.
“You may speak, sir,” she said, in voice an impersonal monotone.
The Archduke bowed.
“I have nothing to say,” he replied.