“Something merrier, Timzra!” Queen Thleeanouhee said.
And throwing back her long love-lilac sleeves, Timzra sang:
“A negress with a margaret once, lolled frousting in the sun
Thinking of all the little things that she had left undone ...
With a hey, hey, hey, hey, hi, hey ho!”
“She has the air of a cannibal!” the Archduchess murmured behind her fan to his Weariness, who had scarcely opened his lips except to yawn throughout the whole of the evening.
“She has the air of a ——” he replied, laconically, turning away.
Since the conversation with his mother earlier in the day, his thoughts had revolved incessantly around Laura. What had they been saying to the poor wee witch, and whereabouts was she to be found?
Leaving the salon, in the wake of a pair of venerable politicians, who were helping each other along with little touches and pats, he made his way towards the ballroom, where a new dance known as the Pisgah Pas was causing some excitement, and gaining a post of vantage, it was not long before he caught a glimpse of the agile, boyish figure of his betrothed. She passed him, without apparently noticing he was there, in a whirlwind of black tulle, her little hand pressed to the breast of a man like a sulky eagle; and he could not help rejoicing inwardly, that, once his wife, it would no longer be possible for her to enjoy herself exactly with whom she pleased. As she swept by again he succeeded in capturing her attention, and nodding meaningly towards a deserted picture-gallery, wandered away towards it. It was but seldom he set foot there, and he amused himself by examining some of the pictures to be seen upon the walls. An old shrew with a rose ... a drawing of a man alone in the last extremes ... a pink-robed Christ ... a seascape, painted probably in winter, with cold, hard colouring....
“Yousef?”
“Rara!”
“Let us go outside, dear.”