Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/210

Rh big, empty room. What she thought was a very humble and pensive thought for so disdainful a lady. It was only

"Is it myself? or only the money?"

She stood some time there, motionless, her hand playing with the gold girdle as his hand had done; her face was pale, softened, troubled.

The clock amongst the Saxe dogs and the Capo di Monte little figures chimed the half-hour after six. She started as it struck, and remembered that she was to dine at eight with the Princess Roubleskoff; a big party for an English royalty on his travels.

"Anyhow, it would be of no use," she said to herself. "Even if I did wish it, it could never be."

And she was angry with herself, as she had been the night before; she was impatient of these new weaknesses which haunted her. Nevertheless she was more particular about her appearance that night than her maids had ever known her be; she was very difficult to satisfy; tried and discarded four wholly new confections of her friend Worth's, miracles of invention and of