The Prince obeyed, and disappeared yawning. Geraldine remained, gazing at this elegant figure on the marble step, with its sortie du bal of ermine and gold silk folded about it, and the face with its hue of a white tea-rose, which could defy so surely the searching morning light.
She glanced at him in return, and laughed. ‘How droll you look with your claque and your ulster; you are not harmonious with the landscape, my friend; and you look sulky. The ball seems to have disagreed with all of you; yet it was a very good ball, as balls go; it is impossible to give any variety to a ball. Balls and funerals, ça se ressemble trop.’
She drew the ermine over her pretty chin, the diamonds sparkled in her hair; the bouquet of gardenias swung in her hand. The eyes of Geraldine grew very sombre and covetous.
‘I am sorry I am a blot on the scene,’ he said, moodily. ‘Englishmen are always unpicturesque. I stood still and gazed at you all night, but no doubt I only looked like a policeman or a fool——’
‘Or both,’ she murmured, with a smile.
He continued unheedingly, ‘While your friend Othmar, who did precisely the same thing, looked, of course, to you and to everybody, like a Titian resuscitated.’
‘Othmar is not especially like any Titian that I have ever seen,’ said Madame Napraxine, ‘but he knows how to stand with grace, which no Englishman ever did know yet. You are quite right; your people do not “compose” well, except when they are in the hunting-field, or playing some very rough game; but you need not souffler for compliments; you are very good-looking—in your way.’
‘Thanks,’ muttered Geraldine, in a tone which would have better suited an imprecation.
Othmar had not danced once with her; he had indeed only moved reluctantly through a contre-danse with his hostess; but the unerring instinct of jealousy made the envy of Geraldine fasten on him rather than on any other of the crowd for whom the ball at Millo had only meant Princess Napraxine.