‘Curt as Cæsar!’
With a little yawn the Princess Napraxine looked down the long shining sea-wall of white marble, studded at intervals with vases of white marble filled with aloes; beyond the marble wall was the sea—blue, bright, quivering, and full of shifting lights as diamonds are. Then her gaze came inward, and returned to the outline of the house which was so daring and contradictory a jumble. The creepers which covered it glowed red in the December noon; its blue and white awnings were gay and fresh; its vanes were gilded, and pointed merrily to the south; a late rose was garlanding the Cairene lattice; some woodlarks were singing their pretty little roundelay on the boughs of a carob tree; it was all bright, lively, full of colour and of gaiety. Nevertheless, she hardened her heart to it and condemned it utterly, out of mere waywardness.
‘I shall go away after breakfast,’ she said, as she looked. ‘Platon can do as he likes. I shall dine at Nice, and you will come with me.’
‘I was sure that was what you would do,’ said her friend; ‘so was Ralph.’
‘Then I shall not do it,’ said Princess Napraxine.
She rocked herself soothingly in her chair.
‘What a dear little bird that is singing; it cannot be a nightingale in December. The sea looks very much like our Krimean one; and what a lovely air it is. Like an English June without the rain-clouds.’
‘Wait till Madame la Bise comes round.’
‘Oh, Madame la Bise comes round the corner everywhere. She is like ennui—ubiquitous. You have her in England, only you pretend she is good for your health, and your Kingsley wrote an ode to her; the rest of the world is not such a hypocrite.’