[CHAPTER II]
A carriage was driving up to the steps of Fianti’s.
To allow it to approach, a waiting motor was obliged to move away, and in the short interval that elapsed while this was being wound up and started off the carriage paused almost immediately opposite the window of Mrs. Vanderstein’s bedroom; she had thus a better view of its occupants than it had ever previously been her fortune to obtain.
On the right of the barouche sat an elderly lady, with grey hair piled high under a very small black hat. She sat very upright and stiff, giving a little nervous start when the horses moved forward impatiently and were drawn up with a jerk by the coachman.
“That is the Princess,” said Barbara, whose head was touching Mrs. Vanderstein’s.
Prince Felipe sat beside his mother, a middle-aged young man of forty with a black upturned moustache and an eyeglass. He had a cigarette in his hand and, as they looked, he turned round and gazed after a smartly dressed woman who was driving by.
On the back seat of the carriage sat two other men—gentlemen in waiting, no doubt.
Mrs. Vanderstein’s eyes were, however, fully occupied with the Princess and her son.
“Isn’t he handsome?” she whispered to Barbara, as if there were a danger of being overheard above the rattle and din of the busy roadway.