"The remarks of the company are excessively interesting to me," Kilary now strikes in, with an impertinent intonation in his nasal voice, "but I beg to be allowed to speak, since what I have to tell is quite sensational. You know that Countess Ada has tried in vain to induce her noble husband to consent to a divorce. Meanwhile, Gladnjik's condition culminated in galloping consumption, and two days ago he died."
"And she?" several voices asked at once.
"She?--she took poison!"
For a moment there is a bush in the brilliantly-lighted room, the soft sighing of the music in the shrubbery is again audible. Through the open windows is wafted in the beguiling charm of an Hungarian dance by Brahms.
There is a change of sentiment in the assemblage: the harshness with which but now all had judged the Countess Ada gives place to compassionate sympathy.
Countess Zriny presses her lace-trimmed handkerchief to her eyes. "Poor Ada!" she murmurs; "I can see her now; a more charming young girl there never was. Why did they force her to marry that old Reinsfeld?"
"He had so excellent a cook," sneers Kilary, with a glance at "the numismatician," from whose armour of excellent appetite the dart falls harmless.
"Forced!" Paula interposes eagerly, in her deep, guttural tones. "As if nowaday's any one with a spark of character could be forced to marry!"
Harry twirls his moustache and looks down at his plate.
"I am the last to defend a departure from duty," the old canoness goes on, "but in this case the blame really falls partly upon Ada's family. They forced her to marry; they subjected her to moral force."