“Why?”
“Because I paid from my own private treasury.”
The soft dress had just fallen to the ground in a crushed circle about Laurence’s feet, and Célèste’s face, as she bent down for it, was pink as a June rose.
“Kisses!” exclaimed Laurence. “Only kisses?”
“But that’s a great deal. Though I would have given even more to serve Madame la Princesse.” And gathering fur and velvet into her arms, Célèste rushed into the adjoining bath-room, where a moment later she was noisily turning on both taps.
CHAPTER XIII
For pulling Incompetence out of the mire
Your guerdon is Hatred, and nothing higher.
“What time is it?” the Duchesse de Salvières asked as best she could through her face-coverings, of the man who sat beside her in the flying sleigh, so enveloped in furs that he looked like a bear.
Fadéi, first coachman of Madame de Salvières, and, as she was wont to say, an old friend of her childhood—a statement that would certainly have horrified Laurence—cast a speculative glance toward the night-sky and the stars, sparkling icily above the lane of snow between the two walls of trees, and, bending sideways, he called out with perfect certainty, “Five o’clock, Highness!”
Tatiana snuggled her head again into her double hood, and for the first time touched the middle horse with her whip, which she immediately replaced in its socket, for she was driving with both hands outstretched as the yèmshiks do, and straight ahead, avoiding the finesses to which fingerless fur-lined gloves do not lend themselves.