We all laughed. Zara, I thought, was especially merry, and looked her loveliest. She made an excellent hostess, and exerted herself to the utmost to charm—an effort in which she easily succeeded.
The shadow on the face of her brother had not disappeared, and once or twice I noticed that Father Paul looked at him with a certain kindly anxiety.
The dinner approached its end. The dessert, with its luxurious dishes of rare fruit, such as peaches, plantains, hothouse grapes, and even strawberries, was served, and with it a delicious, sparkling, topaz-tinted wine of Eastern origin called Krula, which was poured out to us in Venetian glass goblets, wherein lay diamond-like lumps of ice. The air was so exceedingly oppressive that evening that we found this beverage most refreshing. When Zara's goblet was filled, she held it up smiling, and said:
"I have a toast to propose."
"Hear, hear!" murmured the gentlemen, Heliobas excepted.
"To our next merry meeting!" and as she said this she kissed the rim of the cup, and made a sign as though wafting it towards her brother.
He started as if from a reverie, seized his glass, and drained off its contents to the last drop.
Everyone responded with heartiness to Zara's toast and then Colonel Everard proposed the health of the fair hostess, which was drunk with enthusiasm.
After this Zara gave the signal, and all the ladies rose to adjourn to the drawing-room. As I passed Heliobas on my way out, he looked so sombre and almost threatening of aspect, that I ventured to whisper:
"Remember Azul!"