The Countess laughed. "I'd like to see them." She looked across at me with her fascinating, audacious smile: "Wouldn't you like to drink Naxos wine with me, Mr. O'Ryan, and see the old time gods come down out of the blue sky and sit at table all about you?"
"It seems to me," said I, bowing, "that Aphrodite has already arrived among us mortals."
She laughed, acknowledging the raw compliment, then pursing up her red mouth but uttering no sound she nevertheless formed her question so that I read every word on her mobile lips:
"Do—you—know—anybody—who—would—play—Adonis—to—my—Venus?"
And she laughed her daring little laugh and made me a pretty gesture, intercepted by Ferdinand of Bulgaria who took it for himself and continued to ogle her out of passionate, pig-like eyes until further engrossed in a new relay of food.
It was a dreadful dinner party. Both the kings made life wretched for Clelia and Thusis as they waited on table, slyly pinching them when unobserved until, from Thusis' burning cheeks and trembling hands as she served me, I almost feared she would launch a plate at the royal libertines.
It was a weird company. The Bolsheviki chattered and grabbed at food; all the Germans ate noisily—excepting only the pretty Countess Manntrapp, who had been Lila Shezawitch, and not a Teuton by birth.
Constantine had had more claret than was good for him and now he was pouring into himself countless little glasses of brandy, and was becoming loudly and somewhat coarsely talkative, retailing bits of barrack-room gossip to General Count von Dungheim and cracking dubious jokes with Baron von Bummelzug until his wife spoke to him with such cutting contempt that he winced and relapsed into a half hazy and giggling exchange of whispers with the Countess Manntrapp. As for the Princess Pudelstoff, she had never for one moment ceased stuffing herself. Sweat stood in oily beads on her forehead and cheeks; her fat hands plied knife and fork and spoon without interruption save when she grasped her beer mug in both jeweled hands and drew mighty and noisy draughts from the heavy quart receptacle.
The whole performance at my table was becoming a horrid nightmare to me; I could not see any signs of satiation among these dreadful people—any desire to call it off and quit and retire to their respective sties.
Smith caught my eye and I saw him suppress the smile that twitched his features.