'My dear Otho, go and console her; you were always a squire of distressed damsels.'
Othmar turned away and passed back through the apartments to the place where he had seen Damaris.
'Poor little déclassée!' he thought pitifully. 'You have no power to amuse them for more than five minutes. It was cruel to bring you away from your own orange and olive shadows into a world with which you have no single pulse in common!'
With his gentlest manner he addressed her:
'May I present myself to you, mademoiselle? My wife, I understand, persuaded you to favour us by leaving your solitudes. I am afraid we have not much to offer you in return.'
Damaris was silent. She was grateful for the kindness, but she was too offended and pained by the position in which she had been placed to be easily reconciled to herself.
'You are Count Othmar?' she asked abruptly.
She was thinking of the story told her, when she was a child, by Catherine.
'That is what men call me,' said he. 'Believe me, I am your friend no less than my wife is so, and I am most happy to see you beneath my roof. I first made your acquaintance through Loswa's sketch.'
'He was not honest about that,' she said angrily.