Through the open window a sound of distant music caught her ear.
“Ah! If only he were less weak,” she sighed, her thoughts turning towards the player, who seemed to be enamoured of the opening movement (rapturously repeated) of L’Après midi d’un Faune.
The venetorial habits of Vittorio Ruiz had been from his earliest years the source of his mother’s constant chagrin and despair. At the age of five he had assaulted his Nurse, and, steadily onward, his passions had grown and grown....
“It’s the fault of the wicked climate,” Madame Ruiz reflected, as her companion, Miss Edwards, came in with the post.
“Thanks, Eurydice,” she murmured, smilingly exchanging a butterfly kiss.
“It’s going to be oh so hot, to-day!”
“Is it, dear?”
“Intense,” Miss Edwards predicted, fluttering a gay-daubed paper fan.
Sprite-like, with a little strained ghost-face beneath a silver shock of hair, it seemed as if her long blue eyes had absorbed the Cunan sea.