CHAPTER XLVII.
NEXT MORNING.
"You have news to tell me, Bice mia?"
There was a faint daylight in the streets, a blueness of dawn as the ladies drove home.
"Have I? I have amused myself very much. I am not fatigued, no. I could continue as long—as long as you please," Bice answered, who was sitting up in her corner with more bloom than at the beginning of the evening, her eyes shining, a creature incapable of fatigue. The Contessa lay back in hers, with a languor which was rather adapted to her rôle as a chaperon than rendered necessary by the fatigue she felt. If she had not been amused, she was triumphant, and this supplied a still more intoxicating exhilaration than that of mere pleasure.
"Darling!" she said, in her most expressive tone. She added a few moments after, "But Lord Montjoie! He has spoken? I read it in his face——"
"Spoken? He said a great deal—some things that made me laugh, some things that were not amusing. After all he is perhaps a little stupid, but to dance there is no one like him!"
"And you go together—to perfection——"
"Ah!" said Bice, with a long breath of pleasure, "when the people began to go away, when there was room! Certainly we deserted our other partners, both he and I. Does that matter in London? He says No."
"Not, my angel, if you are to marry."