"Why, our little orgie. It gave me a headache." She passes her hand across her forehead. "How badly the air tastes! Could you not open another window, Lato?"
"They are all open," he says, looking round the room.
"Ah! You have poisoned the atmosphere with your wine, your cigars, your gambling excitement. I taste the day after a debauch, in the air."
He nods absently.
"I admire people who never suffer the day after," she sighs, and waves her hand towards the door of the next room, through which comes a cheerful murmur of voices. Lato moves his head a little, and can see through the same door a curious couple,--the major's wife, stout, red-cheeked, her hair parted boldly on one side, and dressed in an old gown, enlarged at every seam, of the Countess's, while opposite her sits a young man in civilian's clothes, pale, coughing from time to time, his face long and far from handsome, but aristocratic in type, his chest narrow, and his waistcoat buttoned to the throat.
"Your brother," Lato remarks, turning to the Countess.
"Yes," she rejoins, "my brother, and my certificate of respectability, which is well, for there is need of it. À propos, do you know that in the matter of feminine companionship I am reduced to that stout Liese?" The Countess laughs unpleasantly. "I have tried every day to bring myself to the point of returning your wife's call. I do not know why I have not done so. But the ladies at Dobrotschau are really very amiable,--uncommonly amiable,--they have invited me to the betrothal fête in spite of my incivility. À propos, Lato, will any one be there,--any one whom one knows?"
"I have had nothing to do with the list of guests," he murmurs, listening for Wodin's step outside.
"I should like to know. It would be unpleasant to meet any of my acquaintances,--they treat me so strangely. You know how it is." Again she laughs in the same unpleasant way. "But if I could be sure of meeting no one I would go to your fête, I have a new gown from Worth: I should like to display it somewhere; dragging my trains through these smoky rooms becomes monotonous after a while. I think I will come."
The voices in the next room sound louder, and there is a burst of hearty laughter. Lato can see the major's wife slap her forehead in mock despair.