'
'Good!' he said.
Nella talked through a telephone, and rang several bells, and
behaved generally in a manner calculated to prove to Princes and
to whomever it might concern that she was a young woman of
business instincts and training, and then she stepped down from
her chair of office, emerged from the bureau, and, preceded by two
menials, led Prince Aribert to the Louis XV chamber in which her
father and Felix Babylon had had their long confabulation on the
previous evening.
'What do you want to talk to me about?' she asked her companion,
as she poured out for him a second cup of tea. The Prince looked
at her for a moment as he took the proffered cup, and being a
young man of sane, healthy, instincts, he could think of nothing for
the moment except her loveliness.
Nella was indeed beautiful that afternoon. The beauty of even the
most beautiful woman ebbs and flows from hour to hour. Nella's
this afternoon was at the flood. Vivacious, alert, imperious, and yet
ineffably sweet, she seemed to radiate the very joy and exuberance
of life.
'I have forgotten,' he said.
'You have forgotten! That is surely very wrong of you? You gave
me to understand that it was something terribly important. But of
course I knew it couldn't be, because no man, and especially no
Prince, ever discussed anything really important with a woman.'
'Recollect, Miss Racksole, that this aftemoon, here, I am not the
Prince.
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