Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/153

143146 [sic] all the intricacies and diversions with which the Vicomte Maurice would keep the cotillon going until nine o'clock in the morning.

In the darkness of her carriage, as it went over the stones through the winding ill-lit streets, she saw soft amorous eyes looking at her under their dreamy lids; she could not forget their look; she was haunted by it—it had said so much.

The tale it had told was one she had heard indeed twenty times a year for ten long years, and it had never moved her; it had bored her—nothing more.

But now—a sudden warmth, a strange emotion, thrilled in her, driving through the dark with the pressure of his hand still seeming to linger upon hers.

It was such an old old tale that his eyes had told, and yet for once it had touched her somehow and made her heart quicken, her colour rise.

"It is too ridiculous!" she said to herself. "I am dreaming. Fancy my caring!"

And she was angry with herself, and when she reached her own rooms looked a moment at her