"I should like to finish viz 'Die beiden Grenadiere,'" he said in his broken English. "I think it is one of your favourites, ma'am?"
"Je l'adore."
Song after song was received with enthusiasm. Herr Mainz played a brilliant "Mazourka de Salon," while the baritone rested and whispered with the Princess, and when the silvery chimes of an Italian eight-day clock announced midnight, the great doors were thrown open and Pergolesi hurled his splendid voice upon the crowd in the outer room.
A phrase or two, and the babble of three hundred voices had become silence; and when the song was done the crowd melted away, still in comparative stillness, while Vera stood on the landing to see them pass, as if she were holding a review. No one wanted to begin talking after that stupendous song. People had stayed later than they intended, till it was too late to go on to other, and perhaps better, houses. The Princess had gone out by a second staircase, which had been kept clear for her, with Pergolesi and Okehampton to escort her downstairs, and Claude Rutherford to put her into her carriage. She went off in a charming mood, but could not refrain from a stab at the last.
"Your wife's party has been perfect," she said, "but the company just a little mixed. I suspect you of having introduced the Bohemian element, in the shape of that handsome lady whom everybody has been talking about."
There were lingerers after that, and the party was not over till one o'clock. The last guest strolled into the pale grey night as Big Ben tolled the first hour of day. Claude followed his wife up the broad staircase, where the heated atmosphere was heavy with the scent of arum lilies, and the daturas that hung their white bells in all the corners. She was moving slowly, tired and languid after the long evening, and she never looked back. He followed her to the door of her room; but she stopped upon the threshold, turned and faced him, ashy pale in her white gown, like a ghost.
"Good-bye," she said, with a face of stone.
"Vera, for God's sake! What's the matter?"
"Good-bye," she repeated, and, as he moved towards her, she drew back suddenly, so quickly that he was unprepared for the movement, and shut the door in his face.
He heard the key turning in the lock, shrugged his shoulders, and walked slowly along the gallery to his own room, not the room that had been Mario Provana's dressing-room.