Countess Medusa Rappa cocked her sunshade; “Whose boat is that,” she asked, “with the azure oars?”
“It looks nothing but a pea-pod!” the Countess of Tolga declared.
“It belongs to a darling, with delicious lips and eyes like brown chestnuts,” Mademoiselle de Lambèse informed.
“Ah!... Ah!... Ah!... Ah!...” her colleagues crooned.
“A sailor?”
The Queen’s maid nodded: “There’s a partner, though,” she added, “A blue-eyed, gashed-cheeked angel....”
Mademoiselle de Nazianzi looked away.
“I love the lake with the white wandering ships,” she sentimentally stated, descrying in the distance the prince.
It was usually towards this time, the hour of the siesta, that the lovers would meet and taste their happiness, but, to-day, it seemed ordained otherwise.
Before the heir apparent had determined whether to advance or retreat, his father and mother were upon him, attended by two dowagers newly lunched.