Constance glanced up, imagining that he meant to make a scene. But he was smiling; and his question sounded good-humoured.
“No!” she said, as if it was only natural.
And now they all went into fits of laughter, Addie with his silent convulsions, which made him shake up and down painfully.
“Do laugh right out, boy!” said Van der Welcke, teasing him. “Do laugh right out, if you can.”
They were very gay as they sat down to dinner.
“And just guess,” said Constance, “whom I met in the hotel at Nice, whom I sat next to at the table d’hôte: the d’Azignys, from Rome.... The first people I met, the d’Azignys. It’s incredible how small the world is, how small, how small!”
He also remembered the d’Azignys: the French ambassador at Rome and his wife ... fifteen years ago now....
“Really?” he asked, greatly interested. “Were they all right?”
“Oh, quite,” she said, “quite! I remembered them at once, but didn’t bow. But d’Azigny was very polite; and, after a minute or two, he spoke to me, asked if he wasn’t right in thinking I was the Baronne de Staffelaer. ‘Baronne van der Welcke,’ I replied. He flushed up and his wife nudged him, but after that they were very charming and amiable all the time I was at Nice. I saw a lot of them and, through their introduction, I went to a splendid ball at the Duc de Rivoli’s. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I wore a beautiful dress, I was in my element once more, I was a foreigner, everybody was very pleasant and I felt light-hearted again, quit of everything and everybody, and I thought to myself....”
“Well, what did you think?”