Page:Stevenson - Prince Otto. A Romance.djvu/114

 ‘It is new?’ he asked. ‘Vienna fashion.’

‘Mint new,’ replied the lady, ‘for your Highness’s return. I felt young this morning; it was a premonition. But why, Prince, do you ever leave us?’

‘For the pleasure of the return,’ said Otto. ‘I am like a dog; I must bury my bone, and then come back to gloat upon it.’

‘O, a bone! Fie, what a comparison! You have brought back the manners of the wood,’ returned the lady.

‘Madam, it is what the dog has dearest,’ said the Prince. ‘But I observe Madame von Rosen.’

And Otto, leaving the group to which he had been piping, stepped towards the embrasure of a window where a lady stood.

The Countess von Rosen had hitherto been silent, and a thought depressed, but on the approach of Otto she began to brighten. She was tall, slim as a nymph, and of a very airy carriage; and her face, which was already beautiful in repose, lightened and changed, flashed into smiles, and glowed with lovely colour at the touch of animation. She was a good vocalist; and, even in speech, her voice commanded a great range of changes, the low notes rich with tenor quality, the upper ringing, on the brink of laughter, into music. A gem of many facets and variable hues of fire; a woman