“Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Prince,” she murmured, taking Moore’s arm, and moving with sinuous grace toward the door. But as she passed the Princess Regent, who had stepped aside to give her way, the veil slipped from her face, and the two women looked into each other’s eyes—the one with a smile of mocking impertinence, the other with a calmly ignoring stare, and showing, by not so much as the quiver of a muscle, her anger and surprise.
And when they had gone, the Princess turned her gaze upon the Archduke, the blue eyes ominous in their steadiness; and as he would have spoken, she repelled him with an imperious gesture, and gave him her back.
“Come, Elise!” she said, and left the room.
In the courtyard, Colonel Moore had just swung Mrs. Spencer to saddle, and was fixing her skirt. Dehra paused in the entry until the black horse had passed the gate; then she went leisurely down the steps, waved Moore to Mlle. d’Essoldé, and let the groom put her up.
Acknowledging Moore’s farewell salute, with her crop, but no smile, and with never a glance toward the window, behind whose curtain she must have known the Archduke would surely be, she rode away—the Lancers again cheering her devotedly as she passed.
Colonel Moore went slowly up the steps and into the room, through the half open door of which he saw the Archduke standing, with chin on breast and back to the fireplace. He looked up, as the Adjutant paused at the threshold, and nodded for him to come in.
“Ordinarily it would be proper now for us to have a good, stiff drink, may be several of them,” he remarked, “but the only kind that fits this situation, so far as I’m concerned, is straight whisky, and I don’t believe this cursed place can supply it.”
“Quite right; it can’t,” said Moore; “I tried the other day—won’t anything else do?”
“No—nothing else; and it’s just as well I can’t get the whisky; I may need a clear head to night.”
Armand nodded. “Going? of course I’m going—why not? and I only hope I’ll get a chance at my sweet cousin. We promised only to look—to raise no disturbance—and on Spencer’s account it is right enough that we should do nothing to betray her; but if Lotzen get in the way, Colonel, we are not obligated to avoid him.”