Page:Wanda, by Ouida.djvu/24

Rh answered, with a certain effort. 'I met her an hour or two ago. She came unexpectedly; she had not even told her servants to open her hotel.'

'Is Stefan with her?'

'I believe not.'

'But surely it is her term of waiting in Vienna?'

He gave a gesture of indifference.

'I believed it was. I think it was. She will be sure to write to you this evening, so she said. We cannot escape her, you see; she is our fate.'

'We can go back to Hohenszalras.'

'That would be too absurd. We cannot spend our lives running away from Mdme. Brancka. We have a hundred engagements here. Besides, your Noira affair is not one half settled as yet, and it is only now that Paris is really agreeable. We will go back in May, after Chantilly.'

'As you like,' she said, with a smile of ready acquiescence.

She was only there for his sake. She would not spoil his contentment by showing that she made a sacrifice. She was never really happy away from her mountains, but she did not wish him to suspect that.

The Hôtel Brancka was a charming little