“You’re happy, my sweet, with me?”
“No one knows, dearest, how much I love you.”
“Kiss me, Rara,” he said again.
“Bend, then,” she answered, as the four quarters of the twelve strokes of midnight rang out leisurely from the castle clock.
“I’ve to go to the Ritz!” he announced.
“And I should be going in.”
Retracing reluctantly their steps they were soon in earshot of the ball, and their close farewells were made accompanied by selections from The Blue Banana.
She remained a few moments gazing as though entranced at his retreating figure, and would have, perhaps, run after him with some little capricious message, when she became aware of someone watching her from beneath the shadow of a garden vase.
Advancing steadily and with an air of nonchalance, she recognised the delicate, sexless silhouette and slightly hunched shoulders of Olga Blumenghast, whose exotic attraction had aroused not a few heartburnings (and even feuds) among several of the grandes dames about the court.
Poised flatly against the vases’ sculptured plinth, she would have scarcely have been discernible, but for the silver glitter of her gown.