“Where is Diana?” asked the Earl, looking about in search of that lively young lady.
“Miss Chesney has gone to her own room to write a letter;” replied his daughter somewhat frigidly—“She will be back directly.”
At this moment Lady Elton feebly raised her hand and pointed to Lucio, who had moved aside to answer some question asked of him by Miss Charlotte.
“Who is that?” she murmured.
“Why, mother dear, I told you”—said Lady Sibyl gently—“That is Prince Lucio Rimânez, Papa’s great friend.”
The Countess’s pallid hand still remained lifted, as though it were frozen in air.
“What is he?” the slow voice again inquired,—and then the hand dropped suddenly like a dead thing.
“Now Helena, you must not excite yourself”—said her husband, bending over her couch with real or assumed anxiety; “Surely you remember all I have told you about the prince? And also about this gentleman, Mr Geoffrey Tempest?”
She nodded, and her eyes, turning reluctantly away from Rimânez, regarded me fixedly.
“You are a very young man to be a millionaire,”—were her next words, uttered with evident difficulty—“Are you married?”