"Let us away, my friend," he cried. "I am longing to see Lady Blanche Huntingford. How did you describe her? Velvety black eyes, rosy lips, hair as black as the raven's wing, tall, stately, shaped like a Juno and a Venus combined—was that it? Please don't let's waste any time. I'm anxious to be off."
"Even although we are going in a motor."
"Motors are useful, my friend. I may not like them, but I use them. For the matter of that, I use everything. I discard nothing."
"Except religion," laughed Dick.
"Oh, I have my religion," replied Romanoff. "Some time I'll tell you about it, but not now. The sunlight is the time for adventure, for love, for happiness. Let us be off."
Evidently the Count was impressed by Lady Blanche. Directly he entered her presence he seemed to forget his cynicism, and to become light-hearted and gay.
"Do you know, Lady Blanche," he said, "that I had an idea I had seen you somewhere. Your name was familiar, and when Faversham spoke of you, I felt I should be renewing an old acquaintance. Of course, I was mistaken."
"Why 'of course'?"
"The true reply would be too obvious, wouldn't it? Besides, it would be as trite and as clumsy as the repartee of an Oxford undergraduate."
"You are beyond me," she sighed.