Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/107

 proposed it herself, the patient Maurice had a very mauvais quart-d'heure as they drove.

The Lady Hilda, who was too truly great an élégante ever to condescend in the open air to the eccentricities and bizarreries of Madame Mila—mountebankisms worthy a travelling show, she considered them to be—was clad in her black sables, which contrasted so well with the fairness of her skin, and drove out with the Princess Olga; Carlo Maremma and M. de St. Louis fronting them in the Schouvaloff barouche. She did not hate the cold, and shiver from the fresh sea-wind, and worry about the badness of the steep roads as Madame Mila did; on the contrary, she liked the drive, long though it was, and felt a vague interest in the first sight of Palestrina, its towers and belfries shining white on the mountain side, with the little villages clustered under its broad dark ring of forest.

"What a pity that Paolo is so poor!" said Carlo Maremma, looking upward at it.

"He carries his poverty with infinite grace," said the Princess Olga.

"He is worthy of riches," said the Duc.