Then, with a graceful salutation, she prepared to move away—Roy Ainsworth pressed up close to her.
“Are you satisfied with your fortune, Madame Vassilius?” he asked rather querulously.
“Indeed I am,” she answered. “Why should I not be?”
“If loneliness is a part of it,” he said audaciously, “I suppose you will never marry?”
“I suppose not,” she said with a ripple of laughter in her voice.—“I fear I should never be able to acknowledge a man my superior!”
She left him then, and he stood for a moment looking after her with a vexed air,—then he turned anew towards El-Râmi, who was just exchanging greetings with Sir Frederick Vaughan. This latter young man appeared highly embarrassed and nervous, and seemed anxious to unburden himself of something which apparently was difficult to utter. He stared at Féraz, pulled the ends of his long moustache, and made scrappy remarks on nothing in particular, while El-Râmi observed him with amused intentness.
“I say, do you remember the night we saw the new Hamlet?” he blurted out at last.—“You know—I haven’t seen you since——”
“I remember most perfectly,” said El-Râmi composedly—“‘To be or not to be’ was the question then with you, as well as with Hamlet—but I suppose it is all happily decided now as ‘to be.’”
“What is decided?” stammered Sir Frederick—“I mean, how do you know everything is decided, eh?”
“When is your marriage to take place?” asked El-Râmi.