Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/320

Rh to noise, and loved fun and riot like a street boy.

Lady Hilda thought a Veglione, and a liking for it, both beneath contempt; yet she was not unwilling to avoid all chance of being alone with Della Rocca even for a moment. She knew what he would say:—his eyes had said it all the evening a thousand times.

The Archduchess Anna and Madame Mila were both in the very highest spirits; they had taken a good deal of champagne, as ladies will, and had smoked a good deal and got thirsty, and had more champagne with some seltzer water, and the result was the highest of high spirits. Nothing could be more appropriate to a Veglione; as no reasonable being could stay by choice in one for an hour, it is strongly advisable that reason should be a little dethroned by a very dry wine before entering the dingy paradise. Of course nobody ever sees great ladies 'the worse for wine'; they are only the better, as a Stilton cheese is.

Happy and hilarious, shrouded and masked beyond all possibility of identification, and ready