"Don't go yet for a moment," she said, in a perfectly unconcerned voice, then paused. "We were talking about your father."
"As to him," said Cosmo, "I have nothing more to say. I have told you all the truth as far as I am certain of it."
She inclined her head slowly and in the same level voice:
"The Court is here and most of the foreign ambassadors. We are waiting here for the arrival of the Queen of Sardinia, who may or may not come within the next month or so. This is considered a good post of observation, but there is very little to observe just now from the diplomatic point of view. Most of us have exhausted almost all emotions. Life has grown suddenly very dull. We gossip a little about each other; we wait for the end of the Vienna Congress and discuss the latest rumour that floats about. Yes. The play is over, the stage seems empty. If I were you I would stay a little longer here."
"I certainly mean to stay here for some time," declared Cosmo with sudden resolution.
"That's right," she continued in the same indifferent tone. "But wait a few days before you write home. You have awakened old memories in me. Inconceivably distant," she went on in a voice more expressionless than ever, "and the dormant feelings of what seems quite another age."
Cosmo smiled at this. The girl with round eyes was keeping perfectly still with her watchful stare. Madame de Montevesso seemed to read Cosmo's thoughts.
"Yes," she insisted. "I feel very old and everything is very far. I am twenty-six and I have been married very nearly ten years now."
Cosmo, looking at her face, thought that those had been the most agitated ten years of European history. He said, "I have no doubt that Yorkshire must seem very far away to you."
"I suppose you write very often home?" she said.