She walks through all the rooms on the arm of her cavalier, and from time to time turns round to Maschenka with a "Are you here, my child?" Whereupon her companion shows her something droll, and she immediately forgets Mascha again.
The heat is stifling, the crowd fearful. At first Maschenka takes pleasure in shyly looking at herself in the mirrors along the walls, then no longer--her eyes meet such a weary, disappointed little face, with such a vexed, gloomy look.
"Now you have shown me enough foolishness. I should like at length to see something beautiful," says the Countess, petulantly, to her companion.
"Do you really wish to see something beautiful--the most beautiful thing ever created?" replies the Vicomte. "A beautiful woman. Then you must come with me into the patronesses' room."
"Oh, clear, no; I know all the ladies; they would immediately take possession of me, and there would be an end of my independence for the rest of the evening."
"At least take a peep through the door," the Vicomte proposes. "There, the lady under the palm near the statue--an Englishwoman, one sees at the first glance--blonde, and in a white gown."
Mascha puts up her lorgnon, looks into the room.
There, near the statue, in a white toilet slipping far down from her shoulders, sits Sylvia Anthropos with her imperial diadem of reddish curls, her short, antique upper lip, her large dark eyes, her golden eyelashes, and finely pencilled eyebrows.
The regular faultlessness of her features is to-day warmed by an expression unusual to her. She holds her head somewhat bent back, and looks up--to whom? Mascha feels something like a cold, hard blow on her heart.
There, leaning against the pedestal of the statue, speaking to the beautiful Englishwoman, stands Karl Bärenburg. Now he raises his eyes, discovers Mascha, starts perceptibly, and turns his eyes away from her.