He thought she was annoyed; Napraxine thought so too; Geraldine alone, with a lover's self-paining penetration, felt that life had grown sweeter and more stimulating to her, that her languid interest in existence had grown quicker of pulse and more content with its own atmosphere since her husband had read aloud the name of Othmar on the pencilled card.
Perhaps, thought he also, with a lover's self-torture, what he had found in her of indifference, of disdain, of lack of sympathy, had been due to the absence of the sole person who possessed the power to touch her dormant emotions.
In reality, Madame Napraxine at that moment felt no more than the vague expectation and gratification of a spectator at a theatre, who sees a drama complicate itself, mingled with a certain sense of curiosity as to why Othmar sought to display to her so conspicuously his escape from her sorcery. She was not mortified; she was accustomed to change her adorers into her friends, and she was of a nature too integrally proud to be capable of small things. She only wondered--and doubted a little.
Could any one who had loved her once fail to love her all his life?
'The "Zostera" looks tempting in the sunshine,' said Nadine Napraxine, as she rose and leaned on the marble balustrade to gaze over the sea, where the stately sailing yacht of Geraldine was at anchor outside the little bay of La Jacquemerille, which was too shallow to be entered. 'I will go out in her in ten minutes' time. I prefer to watch the sunset from the sea, and the sunset will be very fine to-day, for there are a few clouds above; the sky is usually so terribly monotonous here, it is like an eulogy of your predecessor at the Academy: _il y a trop de bleu_. Monsignore, I will take you back to Nice by the coast. I dislike coasting usually, but along this shore it is pretty, and besides, it is too late to go far out to sea. Lord Geraldine, go and give your men the order. I will go and change my clothes.--Wilkes, you will come?'
Geraldine sullenly obeyed, and went down the steps to where his long boat was still in waiting. In a very few moments the Princess Napraxine returned, not clothed in any maritime fashion, for she thought that sort of thing theatrical, foolish, and staring; but wearing a dark serge gown, fitting with marvellous precision to the perfect contour and lines of her form, and carrying a scarlet parasol large enough to shelter the dignity of any Chinese mandarin. She wore yachting shoes and scarlet stockings; her feet, like her hands, were such as sculptors dream of but seldom see.