Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/350

Rh fancy ball at the Elysée, what do you think she said?—she told me that I polluted the child's brain before it could distinguish right from wrong, and that a mixture of Judic and Fashion at five years old was disgusting; and Lili looked lovely!—she was so prettily rouged, and Maurice had given her a necklace of pink pearls. But Hilda has no human feeling at all."

"Della Rocca did not think so," said the Duc.

"Della Rocca was in love," said Madame Mila, scornfully, "with the beaux yeaux de sa cassette too;—as well. They may only have quarrelled, you know. Hilda is very disagreeable and difficult. By the way, Deutschland went after her to Rome, and proposed to her again."

"Indeed! and she refused him again?"

"Oh, yes. She refuses them all. I did fancy she was touched by Della Rocca, but you see it came to nothing; she is as cold as a crystal. She likes to know that heaps of men are wretched about her, and she likes to study those dingy old paintings, and that is all she does