‘It is a little chilly,’ said the Princess as she turned from the open door.
Geraldine caught her hand which held the fan: ‘If you would but believe all that your life is to us, you would not run such mad risks as this raw cold fog after a ball! Had I been Platon, I would have carried you to your room by main force.’
The face of Nadine Napraxine grew very cold.
‘You are not Prince Napraxine—happily for myself and yourself; and I do not like impertinences. Go and smoke, and recover your good manners.’
‘You were kinder to me before Othmar came home!’ said Geraldine, with injudicious reproach.
‘You have very bad manners,’ said the Princess calmly, as she gathered up her ermine and drew her flower-laden train over the little hall and up the staircase.
She smiled as she passed upward.
‘How babyish they all are!’ she reflected. ‘As if to complain of another man were not the very way to cement a woman’s preference for him,—if she had any preference. That poor boy has no tact; if his sister had not said anything about him I would send him away; he is a bore. To be sure, he is here to take Platon off one’s hands, and smoke with him. All men are tiresome when you have known them a month or so; all human beings are tiresome. Nobody ever tires of me, and I tire of everybody. Perhaps——’