Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/231

 good people have to talk about? they would die of paralysis of the tongue.

"You will not leave us for Paris, yet?" he murmured as he rose, with a sigh, only heard by her ear.

She smiled, and balanced a Devoniensis tea-rose idly in her hands.

"Not just yet, if your weather prove better."

He drew the tea-rose away from her fingers unseen even by the quick marmoset eyes of little Madame Mila, who as it chanced was busied making herself a cup of tea. She let it go.

"You should have seen all the men looking after that horrible Léa," said Madame Mila, drinking her compound of cream and sugar, as the door closed on him. "They have eyes for nothing else, I do think; and only fancy her having the very suite above mine—it is atrocious! They say the things at her sale fetched fabulous sums. Little pomatum and rouge pots, five hundred francs each! They say she has fixed her mind on young Sant' Andrea here; I suppose she has heard he is enormously rich. Oh, did you know Gwendolen Doncaster has come? She has