Irene smiled pensively, but made no answer.
The Baroness looked at her again, and fanned herself rapidly.
“It is sometings bad mit you?” she asked at last.—“You look sorrowful? Zat Eastern mans—he say tings disagreeable? You should pelieve me,—I have told you of your hand—ach! what a fortune!—splendid!—fame,—money, title,—a grand marriage——”
Irene lifted her little hand from the keyboard of the piano, and looked curiously at the lines in her pretty palm.
“Dear Baroness, there must be some mistake,” she said slowly.—“I was a lonely child,—and some people say that as you begin, so will you end. I shall never marry—I am a lonely woman, and it will always be so.”
“Always, always—not at all!” and the Baroness shook her large head obstinately. “You will marry; and Gott in Himmel save you from a husband such as mine! He is dead—oh yes—a goot ting;—he is petter off—and so am I. Moch petter!”
And she laughed, the rise and fall of her ample neck causing quite a cracking sound in the silk of her bodice.
Madame Vassilius smiled again,—and then again grew serious. She was thinking of the “elsewhere” that El-Râmi had spoken of,—she had noticed that all he said had seemed to be uttered involuntarily,—and that he had hesitated strangely before using the word “elsewhere.” She longed to ask him one or two more questions,—and scarcely had the wish formed itself in her mind, than she saw him advancing from the drawing-room, in company with Lord Melthorpe, Sir Frederick Vaughan, and the pretty frivolous Idina Chester, who, regardless of all that poets write concerning the unadorned simplicity of youth, had decked herself, American fashion, with diamonds enough for a dowager.
“It’s too lovely!” the young lady was saying as she entered.—“I think, Mr. El-Râmi, you have made me out a most charming creature! “Unemotional, harmless, and innocently worldly”—that was it, wasn’t it? Well now, I think that’s splendid! I had an idea you were going to find out something horrid about me;—I’m so glad I’m harmless! You’re sure I’m harmless?”
“Quite sure!” said El-Râmi with a slight smile. “And there you possess a great superiority over most women.”