Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/59

52 There are a few decent people here this winter; not many though; I think it would have been wiser to have stopped at Nice. Ah mon cher, comment ça va?—tell me, Maurice, who is that woman in black with good diamonds, there, with Sampierdareno and San Marco?"

'Maurice,' pressing her pretty hand, sank down on to the hard bench behind her armchair, and insinuated gracefully that the woman in black with good diamonds was not "d'une vertu assez forte," to be noticed by or described to such ladies as Mila, Countess de Caviare; but since identification of her was insisted on, proceeded to confess that she was no less a person than the wild Duke of Stirling's Gloria.

"Ah! is that Gloria!" said Madame, with the keenest interest, bringing her lorgnon to bear instantly. "How curious! I never chanced to see her before. How quiet she looks, and how plainly she is dressed."

"I am afraid we have left Gloria and her class no other way of being singular!" said the Lady Hilda, who had muttered her welcome somewhat coldly to Maurice.