She smiled: 'Perhaps! I am not sure that it is a bad compliment. Where should we put you in the seat of creation—Mary Stuart and I—who cannot adore you as Penelope and Hermione can?'
'I never hoped to be adored!' said Othmar with some bitterness.
'Oh, yes; you did, one day. All men hope for it, only they do not get it,—except from Griseldis whom they beat, and from Gretchen whom they forsake.'
They were alone in their drawing-room in the vacant five minutes before a great dinner party. He looked at her wistfully. What woman was ever comparable to her, he thought; where else were that exquisite grace, that entrancing languor, that supreme distinction in every movement and in every attitude? The very tones of her voice, sweet as the sound of any silver bell, and cold as the breath of frost, had a charm in it that no other's had. With a sudden impulse of reviving ardour he stooped and pushed the loose glove from her arm, and kissed the white soft skin beneath it. But she, remembering and resentful of the weeks in Russia, drew it from his caress with her chilliest rebuke:
'My dear Otho! we are neither children nor lovers!'
He was repulsed and silent.
At that moment their groom of the chambers announced that some of their coming guests, who were of imperial name and place, were entering the gates.
He and she together descended the grand staircase between the lines of their servants in state liveries.
'Together like this!' thought Othmar. 'Together in these pageantries, these conventionalities, these mummeries; but never in any other hours, in any other way!'