"What an unexpected pleasure!" she murmurs.
As just at this moment a young lady, a pupil of the pianist, has seated herself at the piano, to play a bolero, Edgar is obliged to keep quiet, and cannot help being detained beside the wicked old fairy; nay, he is even pinned down in a chair beside her.
The assemblage listens in silence to the young performer's first effort; but when the Spanish dance is followed by a Swedish 'reverie' the silence ceases. The hum of conversation rises throughout the room,--conversation conducted in that half-whisper which reminds one of the low murmur of faded leaves. The first to begin it was Zino.
"I do not understand how such delicate hands can have so hard a touch," he whispers, leaning a little towards Stella, with a significant glance towards the narrow-chested little American at the piano. "Dummy instruments ought always to be provided for these drawing-room performances of young ladies: there would be just as much opportunity for the performers to display their beautiful hands, and the misery of the audience would be greatly alleviated."
Stella laughs a little, a very little. She is melancholy to-night. Zino thinks of the sword of Damocles suspended above her fair head, and pities her. For a moment he is compassionately silent; then, espying Anastasia, he says, "I should like to know how the Gurlichingen comes here. She is a person of whom, were I Natalie, I should steer clear."
"To steer clear of the Gurlichingen against her will is almost as difficult as to steer clear of an epidemic disease; she steals upon us perfectly unawares," says Stella, with a slight shrug.
"Of all antipathetic women whom I have ever encountered, the Gurlichingen is the most antipathetic," the Prince boldly asseverates. "Her smile is peculiarly agreeable. It always reminds me of Captain White's Oriental pickles,--'the most exquisite compound of sweet and sour.' At Nice they called her the death's-head with forget-me-not eyes. To-night she looks like a skeleton at a masquerade. Just look at her! If she only would not show all her thirty-two teeth at once!"
"Where is she?" asks Stella, slightly turning her head. So great has been her dread of perceiving somewhere her menacing destiny, Monsieur de Hauterive, that hitherto she has not looked about at all.
"There, between Rohritz and that flower-table, there----"
By 'Rohritz' Stella has been wont for weeks to understand the husband of Thérèse; she has not yet heard of Edgar's arrival in Paris. She raises her eyes, and starts violently. He is here in the same room with her, and has not even taken the trouble to bid her good-evening. Good heavens! what of that? How many minutes will pass before Monsieur de Hauterive comes to ask her to redeem Thérèse Rohritz's pledged word? and then---- The blood mounts to her cheeks.